The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance
Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Kathy, you have a problem with something that your son saw.
He saw a disturbing movie scene.

Kathy:
Yeah, he saw a movie when he was over at a sleepover, and he claimed that the couple was having sex. And ever since he saw this movie, which was probably two to three weeks ago now, he apparently is having visions in his mind of, like, either his dad or myself having sex with somebody and, like, it’s always like a close friend of ours or something.

Dr. Kenner:
Oh, that’s embarrassing.

Kathy:
Yeah, very.

Dr. Kenner:
So first, what do you—How old is he?

Kathy:
He’s eight years old.

Dr. Kenner:
The first thing that strikes me is how good that he’s open with you.

Kathy:
He’s very open. And actually, the first time he told us about it, he was crying because he knew that it was, you know, the wrong thing to be thinking about and stuff. Yeah, and my advice to him was just to pray and, you know, ask God to not give him these thoughts and stuff. And he did that. But it’s like every single day he’s bringing this up to me,

Dr. Kenner:
Yeah, okay, the problem with it... tell me what you think the problem might be with praying and asking, placing the—what in psychology is called the locus of control outside of himself, saying that God will change it, or something outside of him will change it, right?

Kathy:
Right.

Dr. Kenner:
It makes him feel more powerless, actually. Okay? As opposed to saying, you know, we all have thoughts like we all have occasional thoughts that we don’t like. And instead of telling him he had, you know, I know you’re not doing this, he’s asking you, “How do I get rid of these thoughts?” Right?

Kathy:
Right.

Dr. Kenner:
If he treats them as, “Oh my God, here are those awful thoughts again, I’m having those images in my mind, or I’m picturing mom and dad, or mom with, you know, dad’s best friend,” or something...

Kathy:
Exactly, exactly, which is embarrassing.

Dr. Kenner:
But you can say, you know, “Honey, that can happen all the time. It’s not a big deal.” That tends to make it feel like it’s not that abnormal for him, because people have thoughts all the time, and what are called intrusive thoughts. And healthy people have intrusive thoughts. What happens when you get like an obsessive-compulsive disorder is a person, let’s say that a good parent is angry with her kid, and she walks in, and I’m going to make this very low-key, and she sees a book, and she pictures herself hitting her kid with a book, and she’s never hit her kid, and she just says, “Oh my God, oh my God, what if I ever did that?” That could be the beginning of an anxiety disorder.

Kathy:
Right.

Dr. Kenner:
Instead of saying, “Oh, I know I would never do that. It’s just, it’s just a mood that I’m in,” if she treats it as more of a matter-of-fact situation, she doesn’t underscore and highlight it and bold it in her mind as something she has to run away from.

Kathy:
Right.

Dr. Kenner:
If, for example, let’s say that—when you tell your mind, don’t think about X. And one of the examples that I use often is, “Don’t think about... I think I heard this example once, a pink elephant like Dumbo, floating in the air.” So, “I don’t want you to think about Dumbo at all for the next 10 seconds. Okay, Kathy, don’t think about it.”

Kathy:
Okay, great. I see your point there.

Dr. Kenner:
Okay, are you already thinking about it?

Kathy:
Right, it’s impossible not to think about the pink elephant.

Dr. Kenner:
Any idea why?

Kathy:
Why?

Dr. Kenner:
Why do we do that?

Kathy:
Listen to...

Dr. Kenner:
Listen to me give myself the command. If you had told me, Kathy, “Ellen, don’t think about a pink elephant,” I’m saying, “Okay, I really want to obey Kathy. You know, she’s a good friend, and I want to obey her.” So what is it that? What’s the instruction she gave me? She told me, “Don’t think of... oh my God, there it is again,” because every time I give myself the instruction, “Don’t think of the pink elephant,” I paint the picture in my mind of a pink elephant, right? So a “don’t” command, “don’t think of something” actually makes you think of it more, and then you don’t know how to get rid of it. And praying won’t help.

Kathy:
Okay?

Dr. Kenner:
You know, praying is—it makes the person feel more powerless, right? So the best thing to do is to just say, “You’ve had some fleeting thoughts, and, you know, I’ve had that too. I’ve had that happen.” But I would give him a different type of example. For example, when I would give my kid an example of, you know, when I was a kid, this is true. I had a night—I saw dogs and cats, and I was afraid of them. I was a little tight, and dogs can be bigger than me, you know? And I remember we didn’t have dogs or cats in our household, and I remember having nightmares of dogs and cats chasing me, and I didn’t know how to get rid of those nightmares, and I just had to not make a big deal about them. And then they started to fade. Occasionally, I’d have them, but I’d say, “Okay, big deal. You know, it’s not a big deal.” And that may help him see that it’s not a big problem.

Kathy:
Yeah.

Dr. Kenner:
The fact that it’s sexual makes it real heightened.

Kathy:
I know.

Dr. Kenner:
You know, there’s a second issue, which is that I was a stickler with my kids. I did not want them to see things that gave them the wrong view of the world before they were ready to cope with it, right? And when they were really young, I thought it was very important for them to watch the news. You know, I wanted educated kids, and I turned on the news, and what do you see at the beginning of every news broadcast? Car accident, how many people killed, or something blows up or a fire? And I thought, “What am I introducing them to?” There’s so much good news in the world, but in the news business, they have, “If it bleeds, it leads.” The lead story is going to be the bloodiest story, right? So I stopped showing my kids the news.

Kathy:
Right.

Dr. Kenner:
With movies, I would show them really good movies, but my husband and I would go through and we’d cut out the violent scenes. I would cut out the sexual scenes until they got a little older, and then I cut out the bad sexual scenes. But if there was a very nice romantic one, as they were getting older, you know, hugging and kissing, maybe not explicit sex, but I wanted them to see examples of good parents, having good people, having good relationships. So I was selective. And my daughter even remembers that a Girl Scout function where I came in front of her, I came in front of the TV with a big sheet and covered the scenes I didn’t want the kids to see. She just remembers this, the scene. It was a cute movie, but I remember it had a couple of scenes in it that were where they just had a bad guy in it, and so, you know, I went in and covered it. So, I would find out who the parents are. I would call and ask, “What do you know? What did they see? What movie?”

Kathy:
Well, he told me it was a movie Failure to Launch.

Dr. Kenner:
Okay, never saw it.

Kathy:
I haven’t seen it either, but I, you know, and really, I don’t think he knows what sex is. I think he’s told me that he thinks that it’s a couple laying down in bed and kissing a lot.

Dr. Kenner:
Oh, that’s sweet, and I hope it was a good scene.

Kathy:
As a parent, as much as painful as it might be, I would want to see the movie that tortured my kid in private without letting him, you know, just privately with your hubby, maybe to see you can get the context, because it may have been nothing bad that he saw, or it may hold that I’m thinking, “Yeah, I think it’s a dirty movie” or anything. Why do I think? Then you can help him put it in context.

Dr. Kenner:
And if all the picture is you hugging the, you know, one of your husband’s buddies, just say, “Oh yeah, we like each other,” you know, then it’s a light touch. It’s not explicit sex. When they get older, there are books by Peter Mailey, M-A-Y-L-E, I think they’re on my website, DrKenner.com, which talks about sex, and it doesn’t—it’s done in a very tasteful way.

Kathy:
Is it a book? Did you say?

Dr. Kenner:
Yeah, they’re kids’ books. But when he gets to about the puberty age, those are good books to introduce kids to sex, but you want to read it first to make sure you’re at home with them, right? And you want to find the right age. And that was Dr. Peter Mailey, M-A-Y-L-E, I don’t think it’s Dr. Peter M-A-Y-L-E, right, but it’s at my website too.

Kathy:
Okay, yeah, thank you so much for your call.

Dr. Kenner:
Yes, thank you very much.

Kathy:
Oh, you’re welcome.

Dr. Kenner:
Here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Dr. Kenner (continued):
Why don’t you stop drinking? Anybody can be a drunk.

Anybody can be a non-drunk.

It takes a special talent to be a drunk.

Takes endurance.

Endurance is more important than truth.

And notice that if you’re an alcoholic, you train yourself to lie to yourself. You come up with all these rationalizations about why it’s fine. You can hold your alcohol. You’re not really—it’s not a problem for you. It may be for other people, and besides, it’s none of their business, and you deserve to have some good things in life. All of those have names that psychologists give them, they’re either called rationalizations, which are lies to yourself, or permission-giving beliefs. They are lies that you say to yourself, beliefs that you hold on to despite the evidence, in order to continue your bad behavior, your destructive path. And it’s not until you catch those things that you say to yourself and challenge them and have the motivation to change that you’ll actually do it for more.

Dr. Kenner Podcast
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Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by doctors Kenner and Locke. Although compromise has its place in relationships, some things will be non-negotiable because they are relationship breakers. If a partner insists you ride behind him on his motorcycle without a helmet, and you’re terrified of motorcycles, how could you compromise, drive only half as many miles as he wants? If your partner wants her boorish alcoholic brother, who is dating a prostitute to move in for a few months, would you compromise by letting them stay only a few weeks? What on earth would you gain from such compromises, except misery? Other non-negotiable issues include serious moral issues such as chronic lying, infidelity, or undependability. You could try persuading one another with principled arguments. But if you cannot find a resolution, you and your partner could be mismatched.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and buy it @ Amazon.com.