July 26, 2011 – /RTPR/ – Dr. Ann Wexler is a Beverly Hills-based psychologist specializing in couples therapy. She is currently appearing onGene Simmons Family Jewels, where she has been helping theKISS star and his longtime partner Shannon Tweed sort through their relationship troubles. In a new interview with Examiner.com, when asked to identify Simmons’ primary therapy issue Wexler quipped, “Wow. Do I have to pick just one?”
On a more serious note she said, “When I very first met him, I thought, ‘Wow, we really need to break through this rock star persona, this TV persona. We have to break through this and I need to find out who he really is. I need to get to who he really is for us to do real work.’ And it turned out that he really did let me in, but I didn’t know if he was going to.”
Dr. Wexler said that Simmons’ public displays of cockiness are actually a front to cover up insecurities that stem from his father abandoning him when he was a child. “I believe that insecurity has stayed with him his whole life,” she stated. “Even though he’s been so hugely successful, and he’s so talented, he still has this feeling deep inside of having to prove that he’s the man. And I think that’s why he sometimes comes off with an overblown self-confidence.”
The show’s season finale airs Tuesday night, and previews show Simmons finally proposing to Tweed after 28 years of being, as he terms it, “happily unmarried.” Wexler said that despite the hard work she’s done with the couple, the decision whether to stay together or go their separate ways has to come from them. “I don’t have an agenda as a psychologist. It’s not my place to determine whether a couple should stay together or be apart,” she observed. “I work with the couple based on what they each express, what they each need and want, both as individuals and as a couple. ”
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