Dr. Hilary Goldsher
speaker
72 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Hilary Goldsher’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
That's right. And so that pull to get reconnected and get back in the honeymoon period, which is almost always part of what happens after an enormous explosion, the abuser. feel some degree of shame and guilt and will shower the victim with all the things that make them feel loved, whether it's tangible goods or... Oh man, I came home to a brand new phone.
Yes.
Yes, and so for someone going back to our original discussion around abandonment and early childhood trauma, getting that honeymoon and that sort of deluge of the showing of love and affection is so compelling and seductive. That's part, it's not the only reason, but that's part of why the cycle stays intact.
And that intermittent reinforcement of love and cruelty creates a powerful emotional dependency.
Yes. Well, you're highlighting a really significant aspect of this, which is the addictive nature. And I'm not using that term in quotes. I'm talking about science, chemistry, what happens in the brain.
And we alluded to this earlier, but just like when you use drugs or drink or gamble, et cetera, and there's, I'm sort of oversimplifying it, but there's a version of a dopamine and a serotonin hit that which is the feel-good chemical inside of us.
The exact same thing happens during the reunification process with an abuser for all of the reasons that I was just describing and more that we can go into if we find the time, but it is the same process. And so you're talking about literal detox. I don't mean detox in quotes.
You're talking about in part to truly get away from an abusive relationship, you have to detox, which means you have to be away from the person. And whatever that takes, whether it's moving to another country or some curation of resources amongst your community, can change from scenario to scenario, of course, but that's what you're talking about. And in the absence of true detox, i.e.
not being with the person, you're not going to be able to truly go away. Why? Because your brain will seek the, the hit of the serotonin and dopamine time and time again in a very similar way that an addict does.
And so conceptualizing that way first helps people understand as they're observing and thinking about it from the outside, but also helps people in it perhaps think about resources in a different way. Yes, who specializes in this arena is going to be very useful, but the curation of resources to help with removal. It has to be incredibly robust, which I don't want to end our time together.
I know we're not almost done, but without saying this, which is the final but critical piece that I'm thinking about around why people stay is the fear of retaliation.
Yes, empirically, empirically, data, statistics, the most dangerous period for abuse victims is when they're thinking about leaving, when they leave and in the aftermath.
So you're talking about two pieces. One is the internal risk of the victim once they leave, recklessly searching for that high. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think we can out of hand dismiss the truth that she didn't directly interview the victim or the alleged perpetrator.
It's common practice. It happens all the time. I mean, if you look at many cases that are not high profile, there is often, not always, but often an expert brought in who has not had access to anyone on the defense or anyone on the prosecution side. So it's an argument that is utilized- often. And so it makes sense the defense would raise it. And in my opinion, you would stipulate to that.
Absolutely. I'm not trying to suggest I have victims or the alleged perpetrator. I clearly have not. And just like myself, if you have expertise clinically, anecdotally over many, many decades,
Again, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand as a truth, but most, not all, but most clinicians that specialize in domestic violence, and clinicians might comment that this isn't true for them, but most, if not many, either treat victims or perpetrators and don't necessarily treat both. They become-
I mean, there's sort of a professional reason, which is less interesting, that when you have areas of expertise, you become hyper focused on that particular area. So if you're an expert in working with domestic violence victims, you just do a deep dive into that particular area.
population and how you would treat them and conceptualize those cases would be wildly different than how you would treat and conceptualize a case of an abuser so some of it is just sort of professional trajectory and really focusing on a particular area of expertise which many clinicians do including myself on various topics like
A clinician might say, I'm an expert in trauma, and that's sort of all I do. I don't really do specifically depression, anxiety, even though those are aspects of trauma, for example. So it's not unheard of in my world to focus on one or two arenas and have it be your area of focus. You, as a clinician treating victims, have...
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