Talking Sex Rehab With Jill Vermeire - Episode 2

Licensed marriage and family therapist Jill Vermeire was on hand during the filming of Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, bringing her clinical expertise to the world of reality TV. She’s agreed to lend us her perspective on the show’s shoot, as well as the rehabilitation of the cast. Below, Jill talks about the show’s second episode: dealing with Kari Ann’s attitude, her own disagreements with Dr. Drew and drawing the line between a good person who’s done some bad things and an actual bad person.

You guys put up with a lot from Kari Ann in this episode. Drew told me that the staff is generally more permissive in sex rehab than it is in drug rehab, where the philosophy is more like, “Get with it or get out.”

With sex addicts there’s a difference between the way you treat the men and treat the women as far as the hand-holding goes. With men I find, in general, they actually respond better to a kind of stronger hand confronting them right off the bat. Being a woman and treating male sex addicts, it’s almost like I have to earn their respect. If I confront their resistance and if I point out contradictions and if I’m very firm with them, it lets them know that I’m serious about what we’re doing and that this isn’t a game. Whereas with women, there’s a little bit of a different approach: it’s not a hand-holding, but it’s definitely a bit of a softer approach. It’s a little bit more of a mothering type thing. The reason for this is that with sex, there is a double standard between men and women. It’s very cliché, but men are the “studs” and women are the “sluts.” So women have been living with this stigma and this double standard, and when it comes to sex addicts, you’ve got a female sex addict who on the outset can pretend that she’s very proud of her behavior, but underneath it is all of the shame and guilt. Men feel too, but there needs to be a different approach with the women because of the double standards that exist in our world.

You’re trying to talk to Kari Ann, and she tells you that you’re laughing at her. You clearly aren’t. What did you make of her aggression?

She’s aggressive because her reality is different than most other people’s reality. She perceives almost everything as an attack or confrontation. I believe that it’s due to her trauma and due to a lot of other things in her past that we never even talked about because she was so highly guarded. I believe that she lives in a state of dissent. You kind of feel like you have to walk on eggshells around her, because she is so highly reactive to everything. She’s learned to survive. She’s in survival mode almost all of the time. And if she really is a severe trauma survivor…look, trauma survivors are incredibly strong people because they’ve survived. The problem is the world isn’t safe anymore. You heard in the first episode, she doesn’t like the word “help.” For her, asking for help is her Achilles heel. It’s terrifying for her.

As someone who’s there to help, that must be extremely frustrating for you.

It is. It’s frustrating because I came to care about every single person on that show, and I still do. There were moments where I would be with Kari Ann, and I would look in her eyes and the guard would be down, the mask would be off, and I saw a little girl in a lot of pain and desperately wanting help, but she doesn’t know how to accept it. And I would point those moments out to her; I would be like, “This is the Kari Ann I can work with.” We’d have a really touching moment, we would really connect, but five minutes later the guard would go back up. I don’t fault her for it, but until she really finds at least one person she can start to let it down with in a safe way, it’s going to be a real challenge for her to really connect. I would love to be that person for her, and we’ve tried several times to connect since this show. I think she has a moment where she’s willing and she’s open to it, but then I think she gets scared again.

At group, Duncan and Kendra take exception to Dr. Drew’s “piteous” face.

It’s the Drew face! I think they end up eventually starting to love it. But that was actually how they were feeling, and I was actually really proud of them for stating it. Instead of just letting it go and secretly building up resentment towards it, they voiced it and we were able to talk about it. The other part of that is on those first few days, they were so overwhelmed. I think they were kind of in a state of shock for a while, and I think that some of the resistance was sort of a push back: “I don’t want you to be this intense.” But it dissolved pretty quickly.

You mention the three-second rule: alert, avert, affirm. I know it’s very straightforward, but I wonder if there’s anything else to say about it?

People kind of laugh at it, but it really works. It’s a pretty standard tool for people to use when they’re in recovery for sex addiction, because objectifying and sexualizing other people is very common behavior of a sex addict. And again, with sex addiction it’s kind of like an eating disorder: your drug of choice is all around you, all day long. So if beautiful men or beautiful women are part of your addiction and you sexualize or objectify all the time, you can’t just lock yourself into a padded room for the rest of your life. You have to learn how to deal with it. What people don’t understand about sex addiction is that objectifying and sexualizing other people isn’t just looking at a human being and thinking, “Wow, that person’s attractive.” A sex addict will focus on certain body parts–or the whole person if they’re more into the “love addict” thing–and literally fantasize and obsess, and go into some euphoric recall or start to come up with scenes and thoughts about this person. It can take a lot of time and energy away. If you’re doing that all day long, think about how hard it would be to get anything accomplished if you’re playing out scenes in your mind with everyone you see on the street. “Alert, avert, affirm” really means as soon as you see yourself doing it, as soon as you notice the behavior, alert yourself, turn away, and affirm. The affirmation is, “I’m worthy of real love. I am a good person.” Or “I’m a great dad,” if they have kids. It not the miracle cure, and it definitely doesn’t solve all of the big problems, but it’s one little tool that they can put into their toolbox of ways to deal with their addiction.

While discussing Jennie’s past, Drew said that she was a victim of child-on-child sexual abuse. I wondered if you could talk about that concept.

I think that’s where Drew and I have a little bit of a difference of opinion. When you have a 12-year-old acting out with an 11-year-old, I don’t think it’s child-on-child abuse. To really be abuse, I think there really needs to be a bigger gap in the age range. I worked with foster kids, and I had an 8-year-old trying to touch his 5-year-old sister. Is that a child abusing a child? Technically, yes, but it’s not for the same reasons that adults abuse children. Really, it’s just a child doing what he or she knows. They’re just repeating what they’ve been shown and what they’ve been taught. Children are our mimics. They do what they’re shown, and they do what they’re taught. And I’m not saying Drew is wrong for saying that. I choose to use different words.

Did you find Drew open to differing opinions?

Oh my gosh, he was always always like, “Jump right in if you disagree! Jump right in if you have something you want to say or if I say something that you feel really strongly about. Anything! Just tell me and let’s talk about it!” He’s very open to feedback. He’s very open to a dialogue about various ways to look at the issues that were popping up. Sex addiction really was a little bit of a newer thing for him, and this is what I do every single day. After a while he said to me, “This is such an intense experience, I feel like I’m back in residency.” I’m pretty sure I was the only person on the show, as far as the crew and production side go, that could just go home and go to sleep after all of this intense work. I’m used to it. I hear these stories and do this work every week! Most people on the crew, they’re listening to these amazingly intense, painful traumatic stories, and watching them go through their process and through their work. It was really unsettling for a lot of people because it was causing them to look at their own lives and their own sexuality and their own behavior.

During alone time with Jennie, you tell her, “Your addiction made you do some bad things, but you are not a bad person.” I’m not suggesting that Jennie is anything other than a good person, but where do you philosophically draw the line between a good person who’s done some bad things, and a bad person?

My personal philosophy is that everybody is born a precious child. Everybody is born with inherent value and worth. Everybody. Think about a newborn coming out of the womb: it is an untouched human being that is absolutely 100 percent precious. My theory and my philosophy is that doesn’t go away ever. But what happens is the world happens. And life happens. Everybody has their path, and everybody has their different scenarios leaving the hospital as a newborn, and then their lives unfold. Bad things happen to them, and they have bad role-modeling, they have unfortunate circumstances, sad situations, painful situations, which can lead into mental health issues and disorders and things like learning to survive and overcoming trauma or whatever. That can then lead to this human being with inherent value and worth inside, to do bad things. But I still believe that at the core there is a good person. Now, there are some people in this world who really do horrific, evil acts: the murders, the child rapists. I don’t believe that they’re evil. Yes, you could probably say that they’re bad people, but I think if you go back to their childhood and you figured out where it changed, and when they started committing these acts of torture, you’re probably still going to find a story that will make you have a little empathy. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, because that’s the thing. Because you’ve done bad things, you’re not a bad person, but that doesn’t excuse the behavior. It doesn’t mean that because you’re a sex addict, it excuses the fact that you’ve cheated on your wife. It can, however, shed some light on part of why you’ve done it.

Any opinion on Kari Ann calling Drew “hot?” She says that she actually wishes he would come alone to wake her up, instead of with you.

I love Kari Ann! That’s a very Kari Ann thing to say! Well, you know, Kari Ann loves to seduce men. And especially men in power. And especially someone who is completely unavailable, completely inappropriate for her. That definitely speaks to the fantasy of seducing and having a conquest over somebody, and would give her the sense of control and power. It would be a huge high for her to be able to do something like that.

Phil talks about being surrounded by so many attractive women. That made me wonder if that was another of your concerns about doing sex rehab on TV: these people were cast because they’re all in the public eye in some way, and people in the public eye tend to be more attractive than average.

No, no. I actually don’t think our group of people was extraordinarily above average attractiveness. I mean, Amber’s a model, so obviously she’s extremely attractive, and Nicole’s a model too. And Kari Ann is the former Miss Teen USA. But they all wear a lot of makeup. Nicole not so much, I guess. But the rest of them wear a ton of makeup. I mean, if you put that much makeup on anybody, they’re going to be attractive, as far as the women go. And then you take off their makeup and you see their true colors. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think that everybody is beautiful. I see beauty in every single human being I look at. We’re a culture focused on flaws, and I think that’s really tragic. I don’t think that them being in the public eye and being “more attractive than the average person” hinders or disrupts the process of treatment. Again, I’ve worked in rehab before with all sorts of people, and you get people at all levels of attractiveness. And the more attractive or less attractive doesn’t make the process any different.

Finally, there’s Duncan. His story is particularly harrowing, since the abuse happened so young. Can you talk about the notion of him initiating sex with his abuser?

That’s actually not uncommon. A lot of time people will actually feel like they’re the evil ones. Their coping mechanism, or their way of surviving abuse unconsciously, is to develop an irrational attraction to their abuser. They will do what Duncan said, and sometimes actually start to initiate sex. Also, think about a 2- or 3-year-old child. They don’t have any concept of “right and wrong” and “bad and good” as far as that goes yet. What the abused child is learning is that “love” means “sex.” They’re learning that this act that’s happening between myself and this adult means that they love me, and this is how you express love. So, of course when they’re feeling like they need to know they’re loved, they’re going to start to initiate and seek out that same type of behavior, because it’s what they’ve learned. Duncan’s amazing. Duncan is a survivor. And I don’t know how much they show of Kendra’s story in future episodes, but she has a very similar story of very, very early abuse. I’m really hoping that through this show, people see that sex addicts aren’t just skeevy perverts in trench coats. They really are these really wounded people that were exposed to, and suffered through, some unspeakable acts. And they’re still here. And they’re still putting on foot in front of the other. And they’re still breathing, which is a huge feat of accomplishment just to exist after some of the stuff they’ve been through.

Learn more about Jill and sex addiction at her website, and check out some shots from this week’s episode in the gallery below.

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Related content
Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew show page
Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew videos and extras

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 10:55 pm