{"id":41267,"date":"2025-03-20T03:29:47","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T10:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=41267"},"modified":"2025-03-20T06:43:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T13:43:28","slug":"the-issues-are-surely-mother-wounds-system-dysfunction-and-misunderstanding-of-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-issues-are-surely-mother-wounds-system-dysfunction-and-misunderstanding-of-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother Wounds, System Dysfunction and Misunderstanding Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

About eight years ago one of my staff team, who I still employ, made me a T shirt that said in big bold black words, \u2018I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER\u2019. Why did she do that? Because as a woman leader it can be what happens., just like for male leaders and father wounds. It is a privilege that I don’t take lightly, but the subsequent way that they can then interact can depend on their subconscious bias of deeply rooted mother wounds that they may even cognitively deny. Subconscious bias is a theme within Duffy\u2019s book[1]<\/a>. I\u2019ve been a bit of a martyr in my life so far, always putting others first and not defending myself, but I\u2019m in year 2 of this chapter of having personal therapy which is a requirement for my professional regulation to stay a registered psychotherapist (interestingly enough it’s not as a psychologist). My therapy process is enabling me to now assert that I have been the focus of a lot of unjust projections that are nothing to do with me but suddenly become about me, including death threats and other reactions usually due to insecurity from others. I am tired of it. The issue is that we know \u2018people tend to surround themselves with people like themselves and over time, they tend to mimic each other\u2019s behaviour.\u2019[2]<\/a> The power of agreement can enable people to believe that they must be right rather than acknowledging that, \u2018it is possible to become more aware of the realities on which our decisions rest.\u2019 [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my current occupations is gathering a movement of people to challenge the current Global System around mental health that is deeply faulty. Sadly, I recognise the damage that ‘our misconceptions are wide, deep and long standing\u2019 and one of them is causing a world-wide catastrophe that is rarely understood.[4]<\/a> An increasing number of people across the world are being diagnosed and medicated by professionals for NORMAL symptoms of distress. The bio medical model of mental health is causing a catastrophic break down of the work force, breakdown of the education system and health system. This is because the understanding of trauma is not taught on any qualifying course to be a psychologist, psychiatrist, medical doctor, paediatrician, prison officers or in a court of law. I have trained 40,000 professionals in 32 nations and here are two colleagues\u2019 comments on their horror of what they did not know.\u00a0 An educational psychologist who I have trained states in my latest book that \u2018Educational Psychologists have not had specific training in trauma but will have an in-depth understanding attachment and child development theory. There are very few EPs who have completed training in trauma recovery.\u2019[5]<\/a> Sadly paediatricians who also diagnose children have a similar training pathway explain that \u2018while our training equips us well to diagnose and respond to many health needs, training in psychological trauma and the amazing things children\u2019s brains and bodies do to navigate fear and survive remains inadequate and patchy.\u2019 [6]<\/a> There is a basic lack of understanding of the reality that this truth is rarely understood, leading to so much pain and increased trauma but helping people understand is hard. Duffy expresses that \u2018controlling misleading health information is even tougher, not least because it is complex, shifting and uncertain, and many sow doubt deliberately for their own purposes\u2019 and commonly held beliefs about mental health are shocking to those of us who have specialised in it for decades.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

This deep misconception of who \u2018the specialist is\u2019 has broken down society with numbers of diagnosis rising and no answers being available to offer hope for healing and change. Neurodiversity is almost no longer diverse because it is statistically now shifting to becoming the norm. Signs of distress need to be acknowledged because colluding with systems that are broken is causing suicides, deaths, disaster and stress beyond that which we could have comprehended. Now I realise that I have done exactly what Duffy says by using fear to help explain the severity of the situation. He cites Mann, Hassol and Toles (2017) who say that \u2018fear does not motivate, and appealing to it is often counterproductive as it tends to distance people from the problem, leading them to disengage, doubt and even dismiss it.\u2019 [8]<\/a> That\u2019s why my latest book is boldly claiming to offer hope to see recovery from trauma normalised, in the face of the current depressing rise of hopelessness or lack of understanding of what trauma is and the impact of it.<\/p>\n

Duffy has a chapter exploring sexual fantasies and my psychologist colleague and friend Elly Hanson spoke at my conference last week about sexual exploitation and the current statistics that evidence \u201875% of girls are anxious about sexual harassment, 1 in 20 British men have sexually offended against children (1 in 10 in the US), 37% of porn involved violence towards women.\u2019[9]<\/a> These trends have led to young people believing, things such as \u2018sex is a transaction, males buy and females sell\u2019 and \u2018in sex or online, people are less real, they don\u2019t have values, intelligence, difficult feelings that need to be respected, pain. They are half humans.\u2019[10]<\/a> In my view this is where the churches general historic culture of shame, judgement, oversimplification and silence around sex has led to a lack of understanding of how God created it to be and instead the \u2018silence allows cliches and stereotypes to breed delusion\u2019 where abuse is rising like in Elijahs day with the prophets of Baal. Duffy himself says \u2018talking more about sex and sexuality, then, is a key approach to reduce our misperceptions.\u2019 Psalm 89: 14 says \u2018Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before You.\u2019[11]<\/a> I believe it is time for those who follow Jesus to \u2018cry aloud\u2019 about the injustice of our times and \u2018to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed\u2026\u2019[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Bobby Duffy. Why We are Wrong About Nearly Everything.<\/em> Hatchette Books. 2018.11.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.28.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid. 19.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid.7.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Betsy de Thierry. The Trauma Recovery Handbook.<\/em> JKP, Hatchette Books. 2025. 309<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Bobby Duffy. Why We are Wrong About Nearly Everything.<\/em> \u00a0308.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid.47.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid. 204.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Salter et al (in press); Global Action Plan (2024)<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Fiona Vera-Gray et al. (2021)<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Psalm 89:14. (NASB).<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Isaiah. 58:1,6-9. (The Message).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About eight years ago one of my staff team, who I still employ, made me a T shirt that said in big bold black words, \u2018I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER\u2019. Why did she do that? Because as a woman leader it can be what happens., just like for male leaders and father wounds. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3453],"class_list":["post-41267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-duffy-dlgp04","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41274,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41267\/revisions\/41274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}