CCPTV.ORG: Dr.Umar on Male/Female Relationships 9-30-18

[Music] [Music] [Music] greetings my name is Luis Dante and I welcome you to yet another edition of cultural caravan on this edition we're honored to be joined by dr. Omar Abdullah Johnson dr. Johnson or dr. Umar C's popularly known is a nationally certified school psychologist he had his doctorate in clinical psychology as well as he's a blood relative of the great Frederick Douglass the great abolitionist he's a child therapist he's a lecturer on black history and culture he's lectured on many topics including our relationships and the impact of many different of racism and psychological on our psyche this broadcast he will talk to us about our relationships and impact on our children and as well as I relating to each other are you ready to go well I am let's go dr. umar welcome to the cultural Caravan thank you we appreciate you joining us please let our audience know what encouraged you to go into the field of psychology as a young child I was the oldest boy in my family and as the oldest boy I didn't have an older male sibling with whom I could converse about issues that were of importance to me so I had decided early on in elementary school that I would be the older sibling the big brother to young men and women who needed someone to talk to who were not necessarily in the home and that is my original motivation for pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology Wow you know obviously we all know that our people particularly here in the United States and particularly the history have really been through a lot through that sojourn and one of the things that I was just also very struck by when I read your bio is the fact that you're a direct descendant to the great Frederick Douglass tell us about yes indeed the first ancestor of mine to be encaptured in africa brought here to America was a black man by the name of Bailey in 1701 he gave birth to a daughter in 1720 by the name of Sayla which happens to be my youngest daughter's name also named after her ancestor say la gave birth to a daughter by the name of Ginny in 1745 and in 1774 Betsy belly was born Betsy belly is considered the queen mother and matriarch of our family she's the woman who Frederick Douglass writes about an all three of his narratives used a woman who raised him she also raised his younger brother whose name was Stephen Stephen was the son of Harriet Harriet was Frederick's mother who had a younger sister by the name of young Betsy and to make a long story short both Harriet Frederick's mom and young Betsy Stephens mom were raped by the slave master who owned our family a European by the name of Aaron Anthony given birth to Frederick in 1818 and his younger brother Stephen and night in 1819 so they are cousins because their mothers harried and Betsy were sisters but they're also brothers because the slave master was their father which makes Frederick Douglass a great-great great-great grand uncle and cousin to me mmm Wow and that's a powerful lineage to be part of and and certainly just be speaks the the role that obviously brother of Frederick Douglass has in our history and definitely that direct connection to you tell us about today's topic as that relation to our history our relationships and particularly we're at a time of the year when people start to focus on our history as well as on our relationships and one of the things as relates to you had mentioned and this is something that struck me that correlation between the relationships that our children have with their parents and how it impacts on their relationships tell us about that sure the relationship that we have with our biological parents is the blueprint for the relationship we're going to have with everyone else in our life be it a business relationship a personal relationship romantic relationship relationships with our own children and so when those relationships are hell that attachment with our parents when it is successful in healthy then that sets the stage for us to have a subsequent amount of successful relationships in life however when that attachment to our mother and father is upset disturbed if it is imbalanced for any reason then that can set the stage for a life full of unhealthy relationships also hmm you know I know a lot of parents are probably thinking hmm you know I mean sometimes there are things that are not going well in that relationship between the mate both mates husband wife or just partners and their that children are witnessing sometimes the disruption the they the tension and and certainly that's something which we need to see tell us about what particularly those are when there is discord in the house how does that particularly impact on children well the discord itself plays a very significant role in how children will relate to their romantic partners when they become adults and it also has a significant influence as to whether or not they choose to relate at all for example children who come from homes where there is a significant amount of marital discord a significant amount of verbal abuse constant arguing between their parents tend to develop a core belief that basically says that romantic relationships are basically a waste of time and that it may be better either to not enter into a marriage myself or simply spend my life streamlining relationships where you never actually commit to anyone and build a solid family foundation children who come from divorce homes tend to end up more divorced themselves children who come from parents who tend not to get married to not to get married themselves it's because you are taught it is modeled before your eyes how unhealthy relationships can be and when a child has never had the opportunity of seeing a healthy relationship they may conclude that unhealthy relationships is pretty much the way things are going to be what are some of the things the major reasons the crisises are impacting black marriages in addition to the bakit baggage that we're carrying from childhood well one of the biggest things when we look at the political and sociological influences on the success of black relationships one of the biggest things is the economic castration of black men because a man's primary responsibility is to be able to protect and provide for his family given a war against black men that see so many of them being Mis educated and economically castrated that puts pressure on the family and the relationship because as the old adage goes if there is no finance there could be no romance and so although you can definitely have romance without significant finance there has to be a basic financial availability there within at home for the relationship to be successful and so when the men are not able to provide for their wives or footed children that sets off a train reaction for all types of other problems to develop that can turn into a depression anxiety verbal abuse domestic violence a lot of strife child abuse when a man can't provide for his children it sets the ground for an unhealthy family situation now when we talk about relationships particularly we're talking about going back to children as children are growing up they're interacting with other people and they are dating and let's talk about how these type of issues in their early formative years can impact on their own the dating behaviors of children or young people as they become adults when children do not have firm attachments with their biological parents which means that their basic psychological needs are not being met that turns into conflicts internally for the child psychological conflicts are born as a result of a child not having their basic needs met some of those basic conflicts involve attachment trust reciprocity and intimacy so for example if a young lady did not grow up with her father she didn't have a healthy bond he was not present or he was present but he was not psychologically or emotionally present in her romantic relationships that complex can reveal itself a lack of intimate connection now what I mean by that is that young lady is either going to be afraid to open up a heart to her particular partner so that he can show that he loves her so she's gonna be afraid of it or she's going to attempt to do everything she can to secure that intimacy by making herself vulnerable to mistreatment abuse and exploitation the way our conflicts work is that we either chase after getting them fulfilled which is when we become addicted to getting the unmet need met or we are afraid of getting the need met because it hasn't been met in the past so you either have a fear or you have a longing for that which you never received take a young man who didn't have a relationship with his mother he may believe that his mother is the reason that his father was not involved in his life he may generalize that belief about his mother to all women and he may come to believe that most black women are untrustworthy and so in his relationships to women he keeps himself very very guarded he never lets her in he may be a good man he may be a good provider but she never gets access to his heart because he is afraid that she would disappoint him just like his mother did or the opposite he will over indulge in that need to trust his mate by trusting women prematurely having not even been in a relationship with them for a while so again you have the overindulgence or the fear as a way to deal with those unmet needs which become conflicts tell us about what happens in terms of when you say relationship addictions what are some of the addictions that impact well one thing we have to understand is that we do not live in a healthy society we don't live in a healthy world psychologically there's nothing healthy about American society the pursuit of materialism or the pursuit of sensory fulfillments and enjoyments is nothing healthy about that so we shouldn't be surprised to see so many children in this country grow up with so many different psychological issues because the society is not conducive to the needs of the child the society is based on a pursuit of money and materialism and so when you have people's emotional needs not being met as children and adults we tend to look for pacifiers things that we can use an indulgent that will help us fulfill our needs and so as a result of that we'll go to alcohol will go to cigarettes will go to gamblin will go to sex we're going to overeating and we'll go to relationships relationships is just one of many addictions and pacifiers that people use to deal with their problems because they don't want to face their pain or don't have enough self-discipline willpower to go into their personal issues and deal with them once and for all so we find that men are dating women not as an in and of itself but as a means to escape their own issues we find that men women are dating men not as an in and of itself but using the man as a means of coping with their own personal pain and this is a big reason why our relationships end prematurely because most of them were destined to fail early anyway because the people in Bob are only in them trying to get a personal need met which means they're totally unconcerned or and unconscious about the needs of their partner so selfishness and personal agendas tend to dictate in relationships which brings about a quick and sudden death to them to the relationship now there are those who say feel that unless they're in a relationship and perhaps those buting they're not whole that they have to be even if it's unhealth even if they are having there's abuse physical illness mental there are people out there who just feel they have to be in a relationship is that what you refer to in terms of feeling people feel they have to be have a relationship regardless of whether it's healthy or not and not looking at the site you know just well it depends with relationship addiction or the primary purpose of the relationship is to distract you from yourself and your problems someone who has a feeling a longing a belief that they should be married or in a relationship that's natural because we all come into this world spiritually pre-wired for marriage men do as do women so the fact that we all want to get married one day to affect everyone our relationships to work out that's not unhealthy what's unhealthy is when you want that relationship primarily to help you cope with own personal problems that you really don't want to deal with now you also talk about post traumatic relationship disorder tell us about that post traumatic relationship disorder is a derivative of post-traumatic stress disorder we could also add into that equation post traumatic slavery disorder post-traumatic relationship disorder speaks to someone coming out of a very traumatizing relationship something that was time consuming resource consuming consuming psychologically draining spiritually intoxicating when we come out of relationships we have to have a period of healing before we go into another relationship man and woman is absolutely essential that you purchase elf of the energy of that other person completely before you enter into another relationship however many of us don't do that because of our relationship addiction we go from one relationship into the other and when we do that we rob the new potential partner of the opportunity to really show us who they are because we're constantly judging them based on fears and experiences that we underwent in a previous relationship so someone who may have been a perfect companion a perfect wife a perfect husband is now being rejected mistreated exploited and dejected because we haven't healed from the previous relationship and so we're judging our current partner all the mistakes of the previous one and we're making assumptions about their behavior that are incorrect because we are so afraid and anxious that they're going to turn into the person that we were last with that we never give them a fair chance in a relationship but let's look at you talk also about maladaptive types of male of female relationship personalities when you talk about that in relation should you say those what does that mean what is that we talk about the different types of well I found in my work that there's six types of unhealthy female relationship personalities and six types of unhealthy male relationship personalities with the male those six types I called them the pimp the predator the couch potato you also have the impregnator the professional okay and then you also have the where you have the pimp and you also have the predator and you have the couch potato the profession or the impregnate er and then you have the men the men who is all about sexually abusing a woman okay using them for their sexual resources and so with the pimp you have a man who just wants to use a woman for her financial benefits he's the man who wants to live off a woman financially her car her credit cards her house her money he's just interested in using her to take care of him okay that is the pimp and then you also have the predator this is the man who's domestically abusive he knows how to psychologically isolate his women by making them dependent upon him and that he begins to verbally abuse them and that verbal abuse turns into physical abuse and it can turn very deadly because as we know the increase of black men killing their women is slowly on the incline you have the impregnator this is the man who led lays a lot of eggs but doesn't necessarily take care of his children you have the professional this is the man who misleads women about how together his life really is when it isn't leading her to believe that he has everything going on what he may in fact have nothing going on you have the couch potato which is the man who was raised by his mother to basically live off of his women the only difference between a couch potato and a pimp is that depend it's consciously exploiting his women and the couch potato is unconsciously exploiting his women because this is the way his mother raised him to believe that women are supposed to take care of you and then of course you had the man who is sexually exploitive he's the one who just wants to sample all of the cookies he can get from a woman without actually committing or settling down with any of them and then for the women you have the hopeless romantic which is a sister who falls in love with the first man she meets because she's really looking for a surrogate father you have the healer this is the woman who tries to turn a man into something he's not believing that she can't find what she really wants so she's gonna settle for anything she gets and tried to miraculously transform him into the man of her dreams you also had the homicidal honey this is the woman who has a history of being abused by men and so she has come to believe that the only way to settle disputes in a relationship is by becoming violent herself so this is the woman who were grabbed four guns four knives this is the woman who likes to domestically abuse her mate to destroy the things that he owns she cannot work through any problem peacefully it has to be drama and then you also have the high-maintenance woman this is the woman who has been so used and abused by men in her life that she has decided that she's gonna pay them back by using them and so she keeps herself emotionally isolated and she simply settles for exploiting men for their financial benefits so these are some of the types of maladaptive men and women that you see out here dating all the time Wow what would you say a person who either of those types male a female out there who may me what would you but how would they be able to get help to kind of change those type of ways that are destroying the quality of relationships well number one getting psychotherapy for relationship issues is not a bad problem what we find in therapy is that a lot of times people are not successful in their relationships with other people is because they don't first have a relationship with themselves and so in order to have a happy and healthy romantic attachment with another person you got to have a happy and healthy attachment to yourself and many of us don't like ourselves and we're trying to find somebody else who will like us because we don't like ourselves so first you have to work on you if you're not happy you can't have a happy relationship you're gonna pollute that relationship with your own individual psychological poison and also I think sometimes we go into relationships in denial fell into realize that I'm looking to get from somebody else that I haven't given to myself for example you hear a lot of people say I want somebody who can make me happy when I hear people say that I automatically know that they haven't done a good job making them selves happy because if you had already made yourself happy you wouldn't be looking for it because you already have it so you're trying to give a responsibility to someone else that is yours it's not fair and the reason it's not fair is because nobody outside of you can make you happy happiness is a state of mind it is an internally generated emotion and if you want to be happy you have to make yourself happy no one on earth can make you happy mmm but let's talk about those who are in relationships or couples who may be looking at this broadcast and saying wow we have some of those issues how could couples basically work through this process together if they know that they're running into roadblocks and having the constant arguing and the fighting do it two outside situations economy or internal or more well first I would say that we shouldn't be so quick to give up on our relationships if we chose the partner for healthy reasons there's going to be issues in marriages you simply have to work through them so the first question that a person wants to ask themselves is can you remain with the person you are with for the rest of your life until the day you die as they are one of our problems is we think we can change people a lot of people get into relationships in marriage being content with 50% of their persons of their partner's personality but they're not content with the other 50 but they believe that they can slowly get them to change who they are so the first question is can you live with them as they are because they're not likely to change if you can't the second question becomes are you willing to try to work with this person through some of those things that have to be rectified and notice for this relationship to succeed so you could consider traditional psychotherapy marriage counseling life coaching give it a chance now sometimes we find that we got with this person for totally unhealthy reasons they were not the right person for us we simply was looking for somebody to love us when we wanted to get out of our parents home or whatever the situation was and if that's the case if you feel that this was just totally a unhealthy situation from the very beginning then you may have to terminate but I would caution people against premature termination and I would encourage them to work through it get some professional help it's amazing the amount of African Americans who have relationship issues who don't want to get professional help now if you're in a relationship with somebody and you want to get professional help and they don't want it now you have grounds to discontinue a relationship because you're willing to try and they're not and you can't get anywhere with that when we talk about the values that a healthy relationship should be built upon what are some of the pillars that people should look at in terms of in this case let's say they do want to keep their relationship to give you they do feel that the relationship has a means that can go forward well or even for those who are considering a relationship maybe in a relationship that's not necessary marital dating and looking at the the core values that that relationship relationship is built upon well the first thing is we want to make sure people's unmet psychological needs from childhood are not dictating their relationship choices we find a very clear relationship between that which we did not have or did not receive from our mother and our Father and our nuclear family we see a definite relationship between those unmet needs in who we are choosing to date so you want to make sure that you are choosing your partners consciously and not unconsciously with your inner child and we all have an inner child that child that you grew up as still lives with you inside of you and that child is still looking for their needs to get met and that child does not base its decisions on rational thought processes that that decisions of the of the unmet needs of that inner child is based on what I me so that means a woman who believes or who knows that a man might not necessarily be her best choice of a mate if her inner child is whispering into her consciousness that you need to settle for him because at least you will have a man present you will end up choosing that man just because your inner child wanted him to get its needs met as opposed to your conscious mind who clearly knew upfront that he wasn't the one for you so we have an inner war that inner conflict between your conscious mind that knows better and you entered child who doesn't know better and only one it's needs metal and as you know no adult should allow a child to dictate their life and then of us should allow our inner child to dictate our relationship success now when we look at values there's core values that you have to study in your potential partner they number one one of them is spending spending habits money can destroy a relationship especially when money is not plentiful so you want to study your mates spending values what is their financial values do they believe in saving do they believe in spending someone who believes in being thrifty and saving their money married to somebody who likes spinning and living check to check it's not gonna work then you have to look at family time how much does your potential partner value spending time at home with the children if you're dating a man or a woman who believes that they should spend more time with their childhood friends and more times with their family than with their own children that's a conflict of value as it relates to how much home time you should be spending then you have to look at romantic time and what I mean by that how much time should you be spending with your partner be severe your career visa vie your family okay so you have to look at that also sexathon is a big issue it's been rumored by a lot of married men that once sisters get married a lot of them stop giving up the cookie so that's something that has to be talked about okay how often should you be physically intimate with your partner that's destroying relationships another thing how you're going to raise the children parenting values if you have one partner who is very serious about academics who believes in checking homework and making sure that children's homework are done and you have another partner who really doesn't care whether or not the children take school seriously that can destroy a relationship you have to deal with in-laws for example you may have two parents who like to play a very significant role in your marriage but you may have someone else who's very private and their parents do not play a role in their marriage you have to talk about that as well one of our biggest problems I'll find is that we do not discuss the values religion is another value some people believe that the church or the Masjid or the temple should be the cornerstone of family life other people who may belong to the same religious order do not necess we believe that they need to be in church every Sunday at the Masjid every Friday at the temple every Saturday so what we need to do is talk about values upfront the reason why we are not talking about our potential partners values is because we really don't care the relationship is based on selfish needs in fact I would argue that about 50% of all marriages in our community come together as a result of ego extensions and ego extension is when I choose you as a partner simply for what you can do for me and how you can make me look so I'm choosing out women because they're attractive I'm choosing out women because they have good education I'm choosing my women because they're well educated I'm choosing my women because they make me look better in public I am not choosing them for who they are but for what they can be for me ego extensions interesting you know it's a lot said because again I always think about the view or the person out there who's like mmm you know they're just boiling say wow you know either at the point where they're realizing that as dr. whom are you saying is that how they chose their partner and and why they're going through the stress and their marriage and member end and just pinpointing and but then at the point where as a person has decided okay I'm staying because I think this is worth fighting for or I went in it for the wrong reasons I think I've been a fine way out but guess what they're children they're there they're you know it's no longer just me and he or what it's now two or three kids on one children child one at one point we did have an extended family where even if the male wasn't there there was the brother of the woman or the sister of the of the husband or the you know that there was someone who can support you even if one mate or whoever reason there was a separation we don't have that type of bond anymore what do we say particularly in situations where there is there are people sisters who are raising children on their own brothers who may also be raising children on their own what can we do to ensure that the children who might be in a situation where there's not you know because of these issues what can we do to support to ensure our children don't have the same effect of issues that we maybe have with number one you have to watch the way that you model appropriate or inappropriate behavior in the home most of our children learn how to lead unhealthy relationship lives are watching their parents for example the woman who hangs around as the victim in a domestically abusive relationship her daughter is watching that and by watching that that young lady is going to she's likely to develop a core belief that says it's okay to be abused by men so she's more likely to accept it herself because mom did in fact she may also develop a core belief that says men have to abuse you in order to show that they love you and if they're not abusive then they don't love you I've seen situations like that where if the man is not physically controlling aggressive and abusive then it confuses the woman because every man who loved mommy was physically abusive so obviously you don't love me cuz you never put your hands on me also the young man who's in that house he's seeing his mother get beat on he's seeing his father or his mother's boyfriend beat on her and as a result he learns that this is an acceptable way of interacting with women so what we have to do is make sure we're role modeling the appropriate behavior you can teach a child anything you want but it's what they see that sticks in every image that's played before the man of a child is a seed planted in the fertile soil of their mind and that seed must and will bring forth fruit now black men as a whole we have not been fulfilling our responsibilities as the raisers of black boys there's nothing healthy about a black woman trying to raise a son all by herself a woman can't make a man and a man can't make a woman she needs help the problem is many of our religious institutions don't have programs set up to help our young men to teach them how to be men and if they do they have to ascribe to a particular religious doctrine which in my opinion is selfish you should be helping all black children whether they are of your particular faith or not so we need more black men volunteering near time unfortunately too many black men who are out there helping our young men only do it because they're being subsidized through grants through the local federal and state governments or through white philanthropy we have to start being a little bit more caring and a little bit more volunteering with our young men because no one's gonna save them but us and when sisters are out there raising boys all by themselves we shouldn't blame the sister for not being able to do a good job we should blame all the black men in that neighborhood who see her struggling and don't reach out to help her another piece and this is some of the things that some sisters have said those sisters who are out there who are looking for healthy relationships who are looking for men who are they feel me Mary you know what are.what and in the perception that there may be a shortage of marriage able black men what do you say to that to those two sisters out there who are interested in finding but are having some challenges and and so forth well one thing I would tell them to be patient and don't be too pessimistic about the opportunities that are out there although in America right now I believe we have a ratio of one black man to every 12 black women despite that you have to recognize that not all of those 12 women per man is going to be someone that the man is interested in just like we have a lot of men who are into the wrong things we have a lot of women who are into the wrong things so when you take away our sisters who are of different sexual persuasions and when you take away our sisters who may not really want much in life for those who are overcome with their own personal issues you're only looking at a ratio of maybe one in three or one to four so it's really not that bad of a situation however the black community does have to be proactive and what I mean by that we do have to deal with the lack of available men out here one of the reasons why sisterhood is at such a low level in the black community is because women are competing for the low pool of available black men and so women are no longer as close with one another as they used to be because they all know it's not enough to go around so sisterhood has become a competition to find a man before your friend does before your sister does before your cousin does before your next-door neighbor does and so we're gonna have to begin to dialogue about how to solve this problem I'm not necessarily saying that we all have to go or consider polygamous arrangements but the truth of the matter is in black America as in America as a whole you have an undercover de facto polygamy that's operating in our community that is not serving the needs of the women or the children and something needs to be done about it polygamy is a very scary word because many of us through our indoctrination here in the United States have gotten away from traditional forms of African marriage and we're totally in love with the European monogamy that we have been raised on however there's nothing monogamous about the black community and we need to accept that stop living in denial and make brothers who do practice that form of marriage accountable to the women involved because unfortunately because they're not accountable and because women love living in denial a lot of them are being exploited and taken advantage of well you know dr. Umar this has been a tremendous conversation and one that we certainly want to continue because there's so much discussion about saving our marriages saving our relationships and particularly creating healthy opportunities for our children to grow for those out there who may be interested in finding out more about your work about how they can seek out the services you provide please tell us how they can contact you well sure I can be reached by way of my website dr. Umar Johnson comm that's D our um AR John sun.com dr. Umar Johnson comm you can also follow me on Facebook and on Twitter as dr. Umar Aoife Tunde which is my Yoruba name i F T u n de dr. Umar Aoife Tunde on Facebook and Twitter dr. Umar Johnson comm on the Internet and of course they can reach me by telephone if they don't have internet access particularly for our elders and parents who are not necessarily up on the technological age and that is to15 area code two one five Philadelphia nine eight nine nine eight five eight anyone ever have any issues with their children as it relates to special education ADHD psychiatric medicine school expulsion any issue with psychological health or emotional successful our black children please feel free to reach out to me I'll offer free consultations and again that's two one five nine eight nine nine eight five eight or dr. Umar Johnson calm well you know dr. Johnson you've provided us with lots of great information and now hopefully we'll be able to bring you back to talk about some of the issues pertaining to education and in our youth and how we can as a community resolve them well thank you very much [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Louise Dente

Views: 86,543

Keywords: Dr. Umar, Umar Johnson, Prince of Pan-Africanism, Louise Dente, Cultural Caravan TV, Black Male and Female Relationships, Drr.Umar Johnson

Id: t4ZtGWCsxgA

Length: 37min 15sec (2235 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018