Finding Yourself Without Losing Your Family - Healing from Dysfunctional Family Patterns with Jerry Wise

What do you do when your family is the source of your deepest wounds? How do you hold onto your identity without cutting off the people who raised you?

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In this transformative conversation, therapist and relationship coach Jerry Wise discusses the concept of self-differentiation—a powerful framework for healing from family dysfunction without shame or blame.

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Whether you’re navigating complex family ties, considering going no contact, or simply longing to feel more like you, this episode offers a clear path forward rooted in wisdom, compassion, and courage.

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Jerry shares:

• His own journey from dysfunction to emotional clarity
• Why cutting ties doesn’t always lead to healing—and what might
• How to spot when you’re still emotionally enmeshed (even with distance)
• Practical steps to stop reacting and start reclaiming your sense of self

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If you’ve ever felt stuck in old family roles, overwhelmed by guilt, or confused about how to move forward with—or without—your family, this episode will meet you with both empathy and actionable insight.

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🖥 Learn more about Jerry’s work: ⁠Jerry Wise Relationship Systems⁠

📺 Watch his ⁠free training⁠ and explore his ⁠self-differentiation course⁠

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If you liked this episode, you'll love:

• ⁠Episode 147⁠ — The Hidden Trauma of Being the Chosen Child & a Path Toward Healing—Making Sense of Your Family Story
• ⁠Episode 127⁠ — Healing Childhood Wounds—The Enmeshed Family & 5 Toxic Patterns that Affect Your Ability to Thrive in Adult Relationships
• ⁠⁠Episode 85⁠⁠ — The Goal of a Healthy Family & 6 Roles We Take On In Dysfunction

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Thanks to our Sponsors!

• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at ⁠betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU⁠ and get on your way to being your best self.
• Go to ⁠AquaTru.com⁠ and enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier!‍
• Go to ⁠⁠Quince.com/bestofyou⁠⁠ for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
• Visit⁠ ⁠GoGeviti.com⁠⁠ to learn more about how you can start optimizing your health without leaving home today and use code BESTOFYOU.

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Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

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Episode Transcript

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ALISON Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today I am introducing a special two part series on a topic that runs deep for so many of us family pain, how we navigate the wounds of our families of origin, and how we begin to heal. One of the things that sparked my interest in this series is a growing body of research pointing to a sharp rise in family estrangement, particularly among younger [00:01:00] generations.

Some studies show that nearly one in two adults in the US. Are estranged from a close family member with many citing emotional boundaries, political divisions, or personal growth as the reasons Gen Z in particular is leading the way in reevaluating and sometimes stepping away from family ties altogether.

It's a painful and complex trend that raises profound questions. When is it necessary to distance ourselves from family and are there other paths to healing even when full restoration or understanding isn't possible? I wanted to explore this spectrum of family pain through two different but equally thoughtful perspectives.

In part one, I'm joined by Jerry Wise, the therapist and relationship systems coach with over 45 years of experience helping individuals untangle [00:02:00] from dysfunctional family patterns and develop what's called self differentiation. If you read my book, the Best of You, I talk about this in terms of selfhood or true self.

It's a. Powerful concept that both honors the systems of which we are a part while simultaneously honoring our need to differentiate. Jerry's work is grounded in family systems theory and it offers a powerful framework for healing, one that helps people find freedom. Whether you are sitting at the table with your family or far, far away from them, it's about becoming your own person.

Even within the complexity of family ties in part two. Next week's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Joshua Coleman. Joshua is a psychologist and author who has written extensively on family estrangement, particularly between parents and adult children. His work comes out of his own experience of having his adult [00:03:00] child go no contact with him for a period of time.

He brings so much compassion and insight to the often silent grief of estranged parents, while also honoring the autonomy of adult children. He helps us understand why estrangement happens and what healing might look like realistically from both sides. These two conversations speak to different aspects of the same deep reality that.

Sometimes the people who are supposed to love us the best are also the ones who hurt us. The most, and that healing is rarely linear, simplistic, or easy. And that sometimes healing takes a different path for each person involved. I hope you find something in both of these conversations, whether it's language for what you are working through with your own family, validation for what you've been [00:04:00] feeling, or a glimmer of hope for what healing might look like.

Going forward. Let's get started with part one. My conversation with Jerry Wise. Jerry Wise is a family systems and self differentiation expert with over 45 years of experience as a marriage and family therapist, addictions therapist, pastoral counselor, organizational consultant, and certified life relationship coach.

His unique self differentiation. Approach addresses the deeply ingrained effects of being raised in narcissistic, dysfunctional, or emotionally immature families, and empowers you to break free from these patterns so they no longer control you, your life or your relationships. Throughout his career, Jerry has helped thousands of clients transform their lives by applying self differentiation to healing relationships and leadership.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jerry Wise.

ALISON [00:05:00] I'd actually love Jerry as we get started here, you've got 45 years of experience that actually started out as a pastor and then became a marriage and family therapist, and now you've got this huge coaching practice really. Specifically focused on helping people with what we're gonna talk about today, but when were some breakthrough moments in your journey when you began to see this as really crucial work to health and wholeness?

JERRY WISE In a brief, after I had tried everything else, I had a breakthrough moment in trying to heal my own trauma, my own wounds, my own identity problems. Who am I? All those kinds of things. And of course, you know, therapy, that's a pastoral. Word. I mean, that's actually a Christian notion when, when you talk about therapy and people don't always realize that, you know, the first therapists were the pastors and monks and you know, [00:06:00] different people who provided healing and spiritual guidance folks.

So that's kind of where the tradition began. So in trying to heal my own wounds, going through so many things all the way from. Cognitive behavioral therapy to exorcism. I did the whole gamut to try to change. Well, and then I use these three words, the three Rs, relationships, reactivity, and recycling. What I call continued relationship problems, continued recycling.

I would just keep going in circles, do better, then go back one step forward, one step back, or two steps forwards, three steps back. You know, it just kept recycling and then, uh, reactivity was a real problem. I just thought, how do you actually change? Because it wasn't for a lack of wanting to. Now maybe somebody would say, oh, well you [00:07:00] really didn't wanna change, you know, if you really wanted to change, you would've changed.

Well, that's kind of a shaming approach to healing. I mean, and I tell people all the time, you may not be ready to give up that guilt yet. But that's not a shame statement. That's a come to know yourself statement, but then others can make a more shaming statement. Well, if you really wanted to change, you would.

Well, good luck. I hope that works for your life. You know, I, I hope that approach. So I realized that I needed to explore more, and I ran into a professor in seminary, Dr. Stoneberg, who was. All of his lectures absolutely fascinated me. I couldn't understand why he was so different from all the other professors.

He was a Lutheran pastor, psychologist. I couldn't understand why he had such clarity. I couldn't understand why he was. Not reactive and very [00:08:00] mature. It just was like, who is this guy? Come to find out he was a student of family systems and Murray Bowen Natural Family Systems theory, and I began to explore that and learn that, and then I began to realize my sense of self and healing is not just an individualistic thing.

I'm always connected at all times. To my family of origin, to others, to relationships. And so if we work from a systems perspective, I found much more healing with that than just let me just fix something broke inside me. 

ALISON Yes. So that makes sense. So this really comes out of your personal journey. 

JERRY WISE And I even, I remember telling him, he explained the situation of what self differentiation might feel Like I said, there's no way in the world I would ever feel that way.

There's no way I could ever, 'cause I had tried this, tried that, and I can't tell you the miracle of, [00:09:00] I just feel so different than. All those years of pain and lack of clarity and, and I just never even thought that was possible. I mean, I would've just said, yeah, I'll probably get a little better, but not really change. Become who I should be at am. 

ALISON Yeah. This is such a powerful and beautiful testimony really, for lack of a better word, right? This is a testimony to change, and I'm thinking of my listeners, Jerry, who will relate to what you're saying. I've tried everything, you know, from therapy to exorcism, you know, to prayer to.

Reading the Bible to workshops, to to cognitive, you know, trying to replace thoughts and I can't change. So let's talk about it. Let's unpack a little bit, and as much as you're comfortable, I'd love for you to share from your own experience of applying this either personally or with your clients. But what do you mean by self? [00:10:00] Differentiation. What is this and how is it different? 

JERRY WISE And people will say, well, are you just talking about self-esteem? But self-esteem is an individualistic concept. Self differentiation means you are different from someone else and different from the system. So that's why as you grow in self differentiation.

You disconnect from the toxicity, the beliefs, the subjectivity, the system dynamics, the systems wifi, which is the emotional wifi that we were connected to with our family of origin. And people go, oh, well I don't see my family anymore. I say, well, you may not see them anymore. But they are in, you still… 

ALISON Slow down. That was just such a statement right there. Self differentiation doesn't necessarily mean just getting physical distance. Not at all from my family and I, I really wanna underscore that 

JERRY WISE [00:11:00] in some ways that could be the least effective because in a system's way of thinking, you think about interesting paradoxes.

Is water good for you? You would probably say, yes, we should drink more water. We should have water. Well, let's then drink five gallons in an hour. Well, what's wrong with that? Water's good for you, but not at five gallons an hour. Then you can actually have water poisoning. And so the same is true in relationships.

Closeness is important. Very important. Too much closeness is toxic. Distance is very important. Too much distance. Is toxic and problematic. So when you think about systems, that's one of the first things to think about, to consider those notions. And then when you say, well, differentiation, what's unique about that?

And that differentiation [00:12:00] is me having internal boundaries in which, you know, I hear what you're saying, but I really don't care. You know, it's not my business. Your feelings are not my business. Your thoughts are not my business. Now, I'm not saying that in an unloving, uncaring way. Certainly I had a neighbor just recently lost her husband.

I do care about her feelings, but her feelings are still not my business. But I can go and comfort her, care about her and express my condolences and give her a big hug, but her feelings are still not mine. That's part of internal boundaries. Now, external boundaries, of course, like don't call me 12 times a day, please call me once a week.

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ALISON It's almost like you're saying with this self differentiation, it almost is a paradox. The more you find yourself in your own internal boundaries, almost paradoxically, you might be able to stay connected. To the system more because you are not as if you've unplugged from the wifi to use your metaphor. I love that you've unplugged. It's not downloading on you. You have found you, which allows you to let other people be them. 

JERRY WISE Again, I'm not talking about we should just accept abuse or physical violence or you know, of course not. And Bowen's notion, Marie Bowen's notion was self differentiation is being yourself. While staying connected because you mature by being yourself and staying connected.

Now there's a lot more to that. And again, I'm not saying people stay [00:16:00] in bad, bad toxic situations physically, however, with self differentiation, when someone comes to me and they go, oh, I've got all these problems with my family. Oh, they're driving me crazy, you know, and they are, the family's driving 'em crazy, and they're also participating in the craziness too.

Because it's always a feedback loop. You know, we're always a part of what we're a part of. Whatever you're dealing with, you are a part of it. Now, I'm not blaming, it's not a blaming statement, it's just a fact about systems and that when they come to me and say, oh, what should I do with my family? I try to do an assessment.

Does this require greater self differentiation? Or does this require greater distance? And I wanna make sure we have that healthy balance. Now, I don't decide all that for them. I educate them and help them understand. Now given this, and this is how Natural Family [00:17:00] Systems works, because actually Natural Family Systems is based on the whole biology of the whole universe.

How viruses work, it's how bacteria work, it's how the planets work. It's how we work because we're all a part of this one big creation here, and the rules are very similar at whatever level you're on. We're interconnected. Yeah, they were interconnected. And just like with Pluto and Saturn, if they got too close, that would be a problem.

If they got too much distance, there'd be a problem in our universe. It doesn't matter whether it's planetary or relationships. So I try to help them understand, is this a self differentiation thing this needed, or do you need to go? No contact is that necessary, but let's try to use our heads and our hearts. Let's not use our immaturity as the reason for cutting off. 

ALISON So I think what I hear you saying is it may be that I can internally, just by way of background, my [00:18:00] background is in IFS. So the idea of internal boundaries is very familiar to me. Oh yes. Internal boundaries. Right, right. So what is it that I can do internally to change myself?

Such that I'm not saying that what's going on around me isn't toxic. What I am saying is, are there things I can do to shift inside to differentiate from the system while still engaging with it to some degree? And you're also holding space for the fact that sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes no matter how much work I can do, the best thing I can do for my own health is to depart. And that's what you're trying to help people discern. And sometimes it might be both 

JERRY WISE and it could be both. Or we need to find out, you know, we may need to do an experiment. And let's see, we can test the system with self differentiation. And if the system doesn't respond well, I. If you go through the say, three stages of resistance, because you'll always get resistance.

But if you can go through the three stages of resistance, the system [00:19:00] will sometimes, if not many times, adjust to accept the new you. They won't like it, but there's some give in the system. 

ALISON I'm gonna ask you a two part question. The first question I wanna ask is, who needs to do this work? Do we all need to do this work?

And part two is. What is a quote unquote dysfunctional family? You talk about getting your family out of you. Is this work for everybody or is this work for folks who have or are experiencing what you would describe as a dysfunctional system? 

JERRY WISE Actually, I think of self differentiation as the normal or normative growing up process. That was interfered with due to dysfunction and toxic families, you know, or parenting or whatever. Now, by the way, I don't just blame the parents. I figure what's happening to you when you're growing up is about five generations old. So it's not [00:20:00] just your parents who have made a bad choice. Parents can make bad choices.

I've made bad choices as a parent, so I understand parents are very imperfect, but. Many are very, very, very imperfect and can cause lots of problems, and that this differentiation process is I think for everyone. And in fact you can use it for everything. And I consult family businesses using family systems theory because it's all about relationships.

You know, it's, everything's about relationships. Many times we will focus on a symptomatic problem, but the underneath problem usually has to do with self differentiation. 

ALISON Can you gimme an example either from your own life or from someone you've worked with of what self differentiation looks like? 

JERRY WISE Sure. Self [00:21:00] differentiation. It is growing, healing, and moving towards. The self-awareness, self-regulation and self definition, and all of our healing. In all of our recovery. We need all of those. Now, I wouldn't say to the person who just came to me and just realized they had a dysfunctional family and were abused growing up, that the first thing I'm gonna do is, why aren't you self differentiated?

No, no. You need to talk through some of the trauma and the problems, but as you're going on, you'll get stuck. And I think where I learned some of this also was. I worked in addictions therapy for a number of years and worked in rehabilitation for alcoholics and addicts, and I was the family counselor at the inpatient center and would work with all the families and with the alcoholics as well.

And I was the only marriage and family therapist there who had that kind of training. And I realized that [00:22:00] alcoholics and addicts, and I think he had even talked about in the big book as well, they reach a point. They almost can't go further. They have gone as far as they can go and then just continue to go to meetings, which is good.

I'm four 12 step meetings. I'm sure anything that will help, if it is helping you, who am I to say no, no, that's not good. But it's beyond, can we go beyond recovery to self? I don't wanna just be a recovery self. I want to be, Jerry should have been Jerry A. Long time ago. 

ALISON What you're describing almost reminds me a little bit of Maslow's hierarchy, right? But as applied to trauma, where we gotta get the baseline needs met, we gotta get to safety, we gotta get food, we gotta get shelter, we gotta get sober, we gotta get these baseline some support, right, of some kind, support. Then we continue to build into belonging and then. What you're describing, I think about in terms of [00:23:00] selfhood, true self, self-actualization.

Like this is who I really am and it's not, I love how you're saying it, Jerry. It's not an individualistic thing. Differentiation implies this is who I am within a context. 

JERRY WISE And Bowen had this imaginary self differentiation scale, zero to 10. And he said, you know, most people are probably, uh, two or three or I don't know.

You can make some change from a three to a four. Also, it's if you ever wonder in terms of attraction, A seven is not going to find a two attractive in terms of self differentiation. They won't get together. They'll be a whole room and the two twos will get together. The two sevens will get together, but the sevens not gonna get together with the two because you, you're on different planets.

And so he said, you can move that dial of self differentiation. And for me, I felt, oh, maybe I was a. Three, [00:24:00] four. I'll just throw out a number since it's a kind of an imaginary scale, but it is tied to certain things you can read about how he was tying it to certain behaviors and thoughts and ways of thinking, but in moving from a three to a four made so much difference in my life. I can't even express it. 

ALISON So someone who isn't quite, and again, there's no shame, we're just naming here. I could even think of my own life. Let's say I was early on, kind of like you trying to find myself through studying books at seminar and in counseling programs. I was very undifferentiated. I had some head knowledge of things maybe in my family or around me that, well, at one, I wouldn't have had any knowledge of it.

Then you get to like a three or four and you kind of have. Some understanding of it, but you're still a part of it. You're still enmeshed in it. And then when you make that big step to Unen, meshing to differentiating, [00:25:00] so it sounds like that's kind of what you're saying. There's a progression from, I don't like this about my family, but I'm still part of it.

JERRY WISE They've done this to me, they've da, da, da. Okay. You can have that phase. But don't stay in the blaming phase because you'll miss, you 

ALISON say more 

JERRY WISE blaming in a systems understanding is negating self. It's not that you caused it, but you're other focused, stay self-focused. You're still giving them all the power.

You're giving them all the power, and you're not self differentiating. Well, I just want you to know my parents ruined my whole life and they have for the last 40 years, and they probably will for the next 40. Oh, well that's serious. You know, YI hope you find your way out of that. You really do, right? 

ALISON As opposed to, I see it now. What am I going to do with my life? 

JERRY WISE I understand it. I accept [00:26:00] it. They are them. I am me. I am not them. They are not me. There's no denial about what happened. How do I become me, which is self differentiation, is more of a self-focused work, and most people that come to me are, when I have a talk show and people ask questions, they will almost always use other focused questions and I go, can we turn that into a self-focused questions?

Because I don't know why they did that. I cared that they did something to you, but I don't care why they did it, because how is it gonna help you for us to analyze them? 

ALISON If I came to you, Jerry, and said, my mom is always doing this to me, my dad is always doing this to me, how would you reframe that? Because that's kind of what comes 

JERRY WISE Absolutely. And I would say, you're absolutely right. That's what they do. Now what do you need to do? [00:27:00] And I want you to stop blaming and stop focusing on them because you're still enmeshed when you're saying they always do and they're always do. That's just a measurement talk.

That's the part of the nonself differentiation. We want to get to a self differentiated. Now, by the way, I'm not saying that happens overnight just because I say that everything goes fine, and so I know it's a process. We're condensing this, so I don't want everybody to think, well, I can't do that in a day.

You know? Well, no, I didn't do it in a day, believe me. But I want to get to that point where I am going. Why am I still focusing on them? Because I'm missing me every time I focus on them. 

ALISON And that point of breakthrough when you can leave a family gathering and all the same stuff happened and you walk away and go, huh, I'm gonna go about my business is so freeing.

JERRY WISE Yeah. That's how my family is. That's how my [00:28:00] family is. They've been that way for years. They're not gonna change. I don't need to change them and I don't need to live in their roles that they have for me, and I don't need to live in their perceptions they have for me because all that, most of it is family wifi, which is nonsense, is what got started in the beginning.

If a parent calls their child stupid, that's like calling your child a Coca-Cola. And I use that analogy. Is it sensible to call a child a Coca-Cola? No, because it's nonsense. Stupid is nonsense too. Now, by the way, I know that children should not be called that, and I understand they can't fight back in the same way an adult Child can. 

ALISON So, and that's the trauma. 

JERRY WISE that's the trauma piece that has to be addressed. But now that you're 35 years old and mom says, oh, you've always been so stupid. [00:29:00] Why does that bother you? Do you believe that nonsense? Do you see how mom is not well? Why are you hurt by somebody who's not? Well. I learned that when I was in a psychiatric practice as a marriage and family therapist and worked in the psychiatric practice, went to lock units and schizophrenia, you know, and the schizophrenics would say, you know, well, you're not a member of the Royal German royal family like I am.

Would I get offended by that? No, because it's delusional. Why can't we apply that to delusional parents who are have their own selves are broken. They don't know how to communicate well, they've been traumatized. Why are we taking that so seriously? Because we don't know any other way. I mean, that's what we learned.

AD BREAK 2

ALISON So let's talk about, again, this is very condensed, but I wanna give the [00:30:00] listener a taste of what are some of, if someone is like, I'm ready for this. I've done the trauma work, I know what went wrong. I wanna take this next step. I wanna be self differentiated. I wanna learn. Sometimes I think about it like a bruise.

I wanna be able to push on that bruise and realize it doesn't hurt anymore. You know? What are the first steps someone could take in this process of self differentiation just today? Even if they're listening? 

JERRY WISE Well, there's lots of learning you can do by reading, of course, Harriet Lerner, Jenny Brown, Brene Brown.

They all come from this perspective, which is why they're so powerful in their message. And Harriet Lerner was one of the first ones. The dance of anger, the dance of intimacy, the dance of connection, the dance. And she says it's a dance because it's not just individualistic stuff, it's the dance and can you change the dance and I wanna help you change the [00:31:00] dance.

That will change you. Rather than, I just wanna help you change you, but the dance continues. I, I know I wanna help you with the dance and that will change you. Getting back to what can they do, certainly readings can be very helpful. Jenny Brown, growing yourself up is kind of a beginning kind of book.

She's an Australian therapist. And now if you actually wanna practice it, there are two things I might suggest just to begin. Because if you want to disconnect from the wifi, if you want to not take things personally, then you have to begin to work on calmness, because the more reactive you are, the more you're in the dance and it infiltrates you.

The more calm you are, the less impact it has on you. I try to help people remain [00:32:00] calm when they go to a family dinner because I'm going, well, why are you upset about that? Who cared? No, no, they can't hit you. They can't. No, no, no leave. But if they're doing their normal, well, I wish Allison would change how she wears her hair.

She just doesn't look that attractive with her hair like that Before, maybe Allison would've gone, oh, there you go again, talking about my hair. Why is that always a problem? Now I am reactive and the enmeshment remains Instead of me working to stay calm, even if it means staying quiet and I'm not accepting abuse, I'm staying quiet to not be reactive.

Then I can even learn to go, okay, what's for lunch? See, I'm non-reactive and I'm letting them think that way while I'm not being affected by it. Staying calm is number one. Secondly, you can become a researcher. Go to your family and [00:33:00] be a researcher. Don't be a participant. Watch what's going on. It's all there.

If you'll start to watch and observe, don't absorb. Go and practice that, and then they come back and going. I had a whole different experience in my family 'cause I was watching and I was working on just staying calm. I have a video called Calmness is Everything, and it's so critical because anxiety is what causes illness, stress, enmeshment, relationship problems. When that triggering goes up, you're kind of done. 

ALISON You're taking back your power when you can stay calm. It's a really subtle shift.

JERRY WISE but some would say, but you No, no, you're, you're disempowering me because I need to tell my mom how wrong she is and, and she's done this for years and she needs [00:34:00] to know I'm upset.

No, no. Doing all of that is just rehearsing. You're disempowering. You're staying in the old dance and mom's not gonna change because you said all this to her. I guarantee you.

ALISON you've gotta step out of the dance, which is your calmness. 

JERRY WISE You've got to step out of the dance. 

ALISON Yeah. The observer thing, if I think about that through the lens of parts, I think sometimes you can almost say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna deploy.

I note taking part of me. At this family dinner, right? And I'm gonna just mentally, and it gives you something to do and then that can help you stay calm. Or I'm gonna deploy a journalist part of me, or a researcher part of me. 

JERRY WISE and these kinds of tools I've tried to put together for the last 45 years and give people tools to use so that they can actually experience it quickly.

I didn't say change and be absolutely a different person to Mark. I meant they can begin to experience that. I [00:35:00] think this is even powerful. Somebody comes to me and says, oh my, my dad's always critical of me. He doesn't like it that I decided I wanted to be a financial analyst rather than a doctor. And he's a doctor.

He thought I should be a doctor, and he just thinks, that's terrible what I've chosen. And I go, so what? I just changed his mental perception. Of what's going on. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't matter what's going on, but I'm saying you are doing this dance with dad right now and the so what is letting go of the tug of war rope? You go. So what? That can be as miserable as he wants about it. 

ALISON Let him do his own salsa over there. 

JERRY WISE Exactly. You don't have to join him. Exactly. Yeah. You don't have to join him and you have to wait till he goes. I'm so happy and love you and I'm proud of you as a financial analyst. Why are you [00:36:00] waiting on that? What's the point? 

ALISON It's good stuff. Jerry, as we close, I was gonna ask you, and you know, there is sort of this movement toward. Some researchers are saying sort of a spike in no contact family estrangement, and almost what I'm hearing from you is that becomes the worst case scenario sometimes. But it almost feels like what you're saying is there's a lot of other ways to go before you have to go to that extreme.

JERRY WISE Exactly. Because we don't want going no contact the best way to go. No contact is non actively. So it should be a mature decision that's made out of the sober self differentiation, not, oh, I just don't like this anymore. So, no, that's just enhancing your immaturity. That's not making a mature decision. And I advise people that way and certainly there are people, I think it is wise if they make that choice, but I even try to help [00:37:00] them make that choice from a an adult level.

It's not. Because my mom just hurts my feelings so much. We need to deal with that. But that's the whole nature of the problem, which is the reactivity. And even people can be reactive with psychological things, even healthy psychological things. They can be reactive with that. Even if it's CBT, even if it's emotionally based therapy, whatever, you can be reactive with almost how many people go home and say, I just learned that you are a narcissist.

You know, it may be helpful to know about narcissism, but now you've just become reactive and went home and were immature with your knowledge. 

ALISON All the knowledge in the world does not transformation make. And what we really care about is transformation right? 

JERRY WISE Exactly. Yeah. Of ourselves. Of ourselves. 

ALISON How would my [00:38:00] listeners who are interested in what you're doing, how do people find your work and what kinds of offerings do you have for folks who are interested in taking the next step in self differentiation?

JERRY WISE I appreciate you asking. I have a website, Jerry Wise relationship. Systems relationship is single. Systems is plural. It's too long of a name, but I've stuck with it now. So there is one-on-one coaching that's available, and I have a couple staff members who I've trained also, and for anybody on who's watching us today, they can go and do the free training that I offer.

All you have to do is go to the website, sign up for it. 84 minute trainings doesn't cost you anything. Then I have the Road to Self Program, which is a more in-depth program, several modules, do it at your own pace, and people have really been responding well to [00:39:00] that. And again, this is my life's work put into this program is it's 45 years of all the nuttiness I've been through.

And learning, and so people can take advantage of that as well. And then soon there will be a book that's, I'm looking forward to that. Also, we're going to also start offering small workshops on different topics that could be helpful. For example, like a 45 minute little workshop on remaining or staying calm, taking all the different aspects of self differentiation and doing a little.

Help with each of those. And again, what's nice about self differentiation, you don't have to do it a lot to notice a big change. And that was from my own experience. I wanted people to know about this and something that helped me. 

ALISON Thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom with us and with so many people. And I saw [00:40:00] how just the course seems to have helped so many people rave reviews. 

JERRY WISE I feel very blessed and grateful that people have found the help that I've found for myself, and maybe they can find it for them. 

ALISON Amen. I love it. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks for your time today. 

JERRY WISE Thank you so much, Allison. It's been a pleasure being here. You're wonderful person. 

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