I am fan girling so hard because I have the most incredible, awesome, distinguished guest for you all this week on the Beauty After Betrayal™ Podcast!
Dr. Barbara Steffens literally wrote the book on how to work with partners of sex addicts. Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal, has dramatically changed the lives of survivors of betrayal trauma, not to mention the professionals who are trained to serve them (like myself)!
She has specialized in sex addiction and helping partners of sex addicts for more than two decades, and along with other like-minded health professionals, founded APSATS (Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists), a non-profit organization dedicated to the training, certification, education, research and advocacy for treatment of relational and betrayal trauma.
Dr. Steffens is a hero for women like me.
For those of you who resonate with the things I say such as,”It’s not your fault” and “You have trauma”, this woman is one of the huge reason why these messages exist in the world today.
We talk about what led her to the front lines of inspiring such massive change in this field. Like many of us, her journey started with her own betrayal trauma.
When seeking guidance, she kept finding professionals and material that emphasized victim blaming and used terminology such as “co-addict” and “co-dependent”. Dr. Steffens quickly recognized that there was an enormous opportunity for growth in both the understanding of, and the treatment of, betrayal trauma.
She went back to school and earned her PhD so she could lean into this work on a much deeper level, and she ended up helping revolutionize the way that we talk about betrayal trauma, and how we help those going through it.
Join us for this thought-provoking and inspirational conversation with the one and only Dr. Barbara Steffens, as she offers us professional support, guidance and understanding of how we look at betrayal trauma today.
Connect with Jenni:
Jenni’s Facebook community is a private group for women who are reclaiming and rediscovering their lives after experiencing betrayal trauma.
Connect with Jenni on Instagram.
Connect with Dr. Steffens:
Learn more about Dr. Barbara Steffens and the work she does.
Purchase her book.
Learn more about APSATS.