Andrew J. Bauman is the Co-Founder & Director of the http://www.christiancc.org/ (Christian Counseling Center: For Sexual Health & Trauma (CCC)), https://andrewjbauman.com/ (Andrew J. Bauman) is a licensed mental health counselor with a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. Andrew is the author of 5 books, The Sexually Healthy Man, Fhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/1072544725/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_nexwDbWKX3Y8C (loating Away), https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-toward-Wholeness-Love-Changes/dp/1631467778/ (Stumbling Toward Wholeness), https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Porn-Pornography-Objectification-Healing/dp/1977078125 (The Psychology of Porn), and (with Christy) https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Lament-Those-Know-Death/dp/198034471X (A Brave Lament).
When Andrew was a young child, he started developing some mental health issues as his parent’s marriage was falling apart. He began to internalize all that trauma in his body all that was going on in his head. His father was a pastor and Vice President of a Christian college. Being a part of a Christian community that had no language to articulate what was going on he just kept moving as if everything was fine, yet his body told him something different.
Andrew hit adolescence right when the internet was becoming readily available and began to self-soothe with pornography. In his words, he found a cheap substitute for God. After thirteen years of addiction to pornography and objectifying and harming women, he found himself on a psychiatric ward nearly killing himself, literally being stripped naked in a padded room.
Through a quote he read on the psych ward, he became determined to find out what makes him come alive because that's what the world needs. He found the courage to hope. He then got his degree and started using his story to reach others who are suffering in similar ways
Andrew wants everyone to understand that much of his harm was not the actual trauma that he suffered whether that was sexual abuse or the destruction of his parents’ marriage. His decision to soothe and his behavior was actually much more complex and harder to undo in the trauma itself.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about what flipped Andrew's lid and how he reconnected with who God says he really is.