Moving Beyond Blaming Your Parents in Therapy

Many people think that contemporary psychotherapy is all about blaming your mother or blaming both of your parents for your unresolved problems, but this is an outdated view of therapy that is part of the many myths about modern psychotherapy (see my articles debunking common myths about contemporary psychotherapy, including the myths that Going to Therapy Means You're Weak, Psychotherapy is "All Talk and No Action," and Psychotherapy Always Takes a Long Time).

Moving Beyond Blaming Your Parents in Therapy

While it's true that historically traditional psychoanalysis from a generation ago focused blame on parents, especially mothers, most contemporary psychotherapists have moved beyond that.

Most contemporary psychotherapists know that while it's important to understand how problems might have developed early on, they also know that if that's all therapy has to offer, clients will remain stuck in an angry, frustrated place and change will be difficult at best.

Developmentally, our perspective about our parents usually changes over time (see my article: How Your Perspective About Your Parents Changes Over Time).

While many young children see their parents as being wise and powerful, as these children get older they begin to see their parents in a more realistic way.  They recognize that their parents have their own problems, which might be intergenerational (see my article: Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma).  

This isn't to say that some parents weren't emotionally and physically abusive to their children which created trauma. But, after recognizing the origin of their problems, which might also include genetics, temperament, and other important relationships, clients need to be assisted in therapy to move beyond blaming their parents so they can make progress in therapy.

How to Move Beyond Blaming Your Parents For Your Problems

Everyone's situation is different, and I don't know your particular situation or your personal history.  

While you might have good reason for being angry with your parents for things they did (or didn't do), at the same time, this can't be the where your development in therapy stops if you want to overcome your problems because, as previously mentioned, you'll get stuck blaming your parents and not taking steps to overcome your problems.

After you process your anger in therapy towards your parents (or someone else), you need to move beyond that stage to actually process your problems because your parents can't do it for you.

Processing the trauma is how you will heal. Depending upon your individual problems and what therapy might work best for. you, therapy could include the following forms of experiential therapy:

• Parts Work: This form of therapy, which has many different names, including Ego States work, Internal Family Systems (IFS), as well other names. It was developed by many different therapists over time, including Dr. Richard Schwartz.  It involves recognizing that we're all made up of a multiplicity of selves, which includes a child part as well as an adult part, and many other parts. So, to give just one example of how this type of therapy can be used, if you grew up in a home where you were emotionally neglected, a Parts Work therapist can help you to develop a more nurturing adult part so that you can nurture the child part of you that holds the trauma. With this type of therapy, there's a recognition that you mihjt not have gotten what you needed emotionally when you were a child, but you can always give it to yourself if you learn how to do it (see my article: Understanding the Many Aspects of Yourself).

• EMDR Therapy: EMDR therapy, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, was developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro.  It helps you to reprocess unresolved trauma, including unresolved childhood trauma, also known as developmental trauma, through a process called memory reconsolidation (see my article: Experiential Therapy, like EMDR, Helps You to Achieve Breakthroughs to Overcome Trauma).

• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (also known as AEDP): AEDP, which was developed by Dr. Diana Fosha, to help clients overcome trauma. It's based on many different disciplines, including:

• attachment theory
• affective neuroscience
• trauma research
• developmental research 
• mind-body/somatic therapy
• emotion theory
• phenomonology 
• transformational studies

• Somatic Experiencing (also known as SE): SE, which was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, takes into account that trauma is stored in the body.  This often leads to emotional numbing also known as dissociation. SE can help clients to release the trauma and help them to feel more integrated emotionally and physically.

• Clinical Hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy): Clinical hypnosis helps clients to achieve a relaxed state where they can have access to deeper, unconscious material and that can help clients to become more open to change.

• Integrative Psychotherapy: Many experiential therapists work in a way that integrates the different types of therapies mentioned above, which is often beneficial for clients (see my articles: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy and Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

It's not unusual for experiential therapists to use the different modalities mentioned above during different stages of therapy, depending upon what the client needs.  

For instance, in my prior article, where I discussed that clients aren't defined by their psychological trauma, I gave an example in the clinical scenario where the therapist started with Parts Work and then used EMDR therapy.

Conclusion

Unlike outmoded forms of psychotherapy from a century ago, contemporary psychotherapy recognizes that if clients don't move beyond the stage of blaming their parents, they will remain stuck with their problems.  

Experiential therapy, including EMDR, Parts Work AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis provide clients with an opportunity to work through unresolved problems so they can move on with their life (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Rather than remaining stuck in a blame trap, contact an experiential psychotherapist who can help you to overcome the obstacles that are blocking your growth.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Parts Work and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

As an experiential therapist, helping clients to overcome trauma is my specialty.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.