Using Lie detectors in the Disclosure and Recovery Process (not in place of!)

Our process (may be different if you’re already working with a therapist and JUST need the lie detector test):

1.    Couples and individual sessions to discuss process, what to expect, and how to prepare

2.    Offending partner completes sexual history including important partner questions

3.    Betrayed partner reads through unanswered sexual history questions and creates questions to include in the test and gives them to spouse

4.    Lie detector test (incorporating partner questions)

5.    Disclosure (only if lie detector test is passed, review sexual history and questions with partner, 2+ hour session OR partner review on their own)

6.    Follow up sessions include may include Impact letter (betrayed partner), restitution letter (offending partner) and recommitment ceremony (in time)

Why use lie detector tests?

·      It serves to reset our core values, beginning the commitment to complete integrity in earnest, when it often wouldn’t happen otherwise

·      Shorten the time frame of the recovery process

·      Have a more accurate method of detecting deception in order to move past gaslighting and game playing

·      Increase honesty around acting out behavior. It’s a way to help the client break through denial about the problem or the extent of the problem and its effects on them and others

·      It provides information necessary to make important decisions about the relationship

·      Validate the spouse’s feelings about what’s going on

·      Helps create an environment of suffering, pain, and acceptance that is a necessary part of developing safety, empathy, and rebuilding trust

·      Increases sense of self-worth as they come to understand they are still loved despite what they’ve done

·      Sense of accomplishment that they shared what they always believed they couldn’t

When to use them

·      Whenever there has been dishonesty, minimizing, justifying, or gaslighting behavior in the relationship, even if it was just a little

·      When the offending partner(s) is resistant and struggles to take the process seriously

·      When there has been a staggered (in pieces) disclosure or sharing of information

·      When the addict only shares a minimum of information once caught and confronted, but not on their own

When not to use them

·      It’s a matter of how you feel about it more than any particular indicator

·      When there is trust in the relationship and a history of sharing and openness

What to be aware of

·      If the lie detector test is passed, do the disclosure as soon as you can (within a few days)

·      If the lie detector test is passed and there is significant new information for the spouse, have a prep session between you and the betrayed partner where the new information is shared, giving them time to process in preparation for the disclosure

·      If there are certain behaviors that have ultimatums that the lie detector test will reveal, the betrayed partner will often need to be prepared which may include the following:

• better understanding of the nature of addiction
• have a time frame (usually 90 days) with an agreement that no decision will be made to end the relationship, despite what they’ve learned from the polygraph
• A therapeutic separation may be a good option

·      Have the understanding that there will be no disclosure if the lie detector test is failed. I encourage them to retake it again in a month with more therapy, at which point another failure may terminate the disclosure/recovery process

·      Prepare for follow up maintenance lie detector tests every 6 months or so to ensure continued honesty until spouse feels they are unnecessary

Professional Development