Much of addiction treatment for men focuses on teaching men how to access and share their feelings. Men's denial and silence of their feelings is a major contributor to addictive behaviors and relapse. Men have traditionally looked to women to fulfill the feeling function in their lives.

The more important the male image is to a man, the more he denies his feelings and is silent about them. To feel, he believes, is to be less like a man. This workshop will explore a paradigm which can assist men in broadening their self image to include all of who they are.

Men have traditionally looked to the female, to the woman in their lives, for their sense of completion, to connect with their ability to feel, and for their connection to their souls. Indeed, the women in their lives can be wonderful teachers; however, the master teacher resides within. The guardian of their souls is indeed a woman. She is the inner woman who lives within each man. She is the woman men have starved and neglected. She is the woman who cries for their embrace. She offers men heaven, and gives them hell when men neglect her. Like the outer woman who when scorned may get angry, the inner woman when scorned or neglected creates havoc in their lives and in their relationships and she may indeed create what men experience
as discontent, moodiness, their long dark nights of the soul and increased potential for relapse. Man's work is to know her, accept her presence, learn from her, and learn to appreciate her.

When she feels their love and no longer their scorn or neglect, she offers men the gifts of the universe. Embracing the feminine elements within, men learn to love the outer woman. Embracing the woman within, men regain the ability to find value, meaning, and energy in life. Men find their ability to fully feel alive, to love and to engage meaningfully with others. Participants will be led on a journey to discover the lost feminine elements within their
psyche. The group will explore ways of reacquainting themselves with the lost feminine, and begin the process of building a new relationship with the woman within.

The man who broadens his self image to allow himself to not be silent about his feelings is more capable of expressing what Robert Ackerman terms behaviors that allow them to reach their potential as fully functioning human beings. The man is then more capable of:

identifying and expressing his feelings

letting go of being in control

living with a sense of power about the present and contentment about the past

loving and being loved

liking himself

attracting and using the support of healthy people

developing a sense of humor

being at ease socially

Lying with the heavenly Woman (Rbt Johnson)
This is a Wonderful Book

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Richard I Jontry, Ph.D., MAC, CAC Diplomate
P. O. Box 129 • Chadds Ford, PA 19317
(610) 361-0108, or E-mail : drj@drjontry.com