How is Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy Different From Traditional Psychotherapy?

I have written about Experiential Therapy, which is also known as mind-body oriented therapy or bottom up therapy, in prior articles (see links for a list of articles below).

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

How is Mind-Body Oriented Therapy Different From Traditional Therapy?

Mind-body oriented psychotherapy is different from traditional therapy because it integrates the physical body into the psychological healing process instead of relying only on verbal dialog, intellectual analysis and insight alone.

As I have mentioned in prior articles, traditional talk therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), uses a "top down" approach focusing on thoughts to influence feelings and behavior.  

In contrast to traditional talk therapy, mind-body oriented therapy or somatic therapy uses as "bottom up" approach. This means it uses physiological regulation in addition to focusing on thoughts and behavior to calm the nervous system and unlock psychological change.

Core Direction of Healing

• Traditional Therapy (top down): Targets the conscious rational mind. It analyzes problems, restructures distorted thinking and explores personal history to change emotional responses.

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Talk Therapy

• Mind-Body Therapy (bottom up): Targets the autonomic nervous system. It addresses how stress and trauma are physically stored in the body as well as posture and breathing patterns.

Comparison of Key Differences

Primary Vehicle

• Traditional Therapy: Verbal communication and cognitive reflection.

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

• Mind-Body Therapy: Bodily sensations, movement and physiological tracking as well as reflection on the connection between the mind and unconscious processes.

View of the Body

• Traditional Therapy: The body is a passive bystander that reacts to thoughts.

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

• Mind-Body Therapy: The body is an active partner that can express unspoken trauma.

Key Objectives

• Traditional Therapy: Insight development, behavior modification and narrative reframing.

• Mind-Body Therapy: Nervous system regulation, awareness of the body and trauma processing.

Pacing and Flow

• Traditional Therapy: Continuous conversation, logical analysis and structured debate.

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

• Mind-Body Therapy: Frequent pauses, mindful silence and inward sensory tracking.

Differences in Applied Technique

• Traditional Therapy: Relies on cognitive restructuring, behavioral tracking, exposure exercises and exploring historical family dynamics.

• Mind-Body Therapy: Incorporates targeted breathwork, progressive muscle relaxation, grounding exercises , containment exercises and psychological and physical release of painful experiences.

Trauma Processing

• Traditional Therapy: Can sometimes overwhelm clients by revisiting traumatic memories in an abstract way without containment.

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

• Mind-body Therapy: Mind-body therapy, like EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing, IFS Therapy and AEDP, focus on discharging the physical survival energy bound to the traumatic memory. This usually provides faster and safer psychological and physiological relief.

Therapeutic Synergy

While traditional therapy and mind-body therapy are distinct, these approaches aren't mutually exclusive. 

Mind-Body Oriented Therapy vs Traditional Therapy

Many modern psychotherapists use an integrative approach where cognitive insights from talk therapy are grounded and stabilized through mind-body oriented techniques.

My Approach

My original training over 25 years ago was in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy which are both depth-oriented therapies.

Over the years, I trained in mind-body oriented therapies like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, AEDP, hypnotherapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples because I found that psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy were limited. 

As a result, I use an integrative approach which combines the best of depth psychology and mind-body oriented therapy to help clients heal emotional wounds.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS/Parts Work, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I use an integrated approach to therapy to help individual adults and couples.

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

I provide a free 10-15 minute phone call before setting up a first appointment.

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

Also See My Articles:

What Are the Benefits of Integrative Therapy?

What is the Difference Between a Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach to Therapy?

Healing From the Inside Out: Why Intellectual Insight Isn't Enough 

What is Somatic IFS Therapy? 

What is Somatic Resonance in Therapy and How Is It Healing?

In everyday encounters, somatic resonance occurs when two or more people connect with each other and influence each other on a nonverbal, physical and nervous system level.

Somatic resonance is often called "body to body" dialog. It occurs when your body unconsciously mirrors, tracks or synchronizes with the physiological states of another person. 

Somatic Resonance in Psychotherapy

The physiological state includes heart rate, breathing and muscle tension.

How Does Somatic Resonance Work in Everyday Experiences?

Somatic resonance relies heavily on the nervous system's capacity for interpersonal co-regulation.  This includes:

• Biological Entrainment: When people are in close contact, their heart rates and respiration patterns align.

• Mirror Neurons: Brain networks translate the observed movements and emotions of others into internal physical sensations within your own body.

• Micro-Movements: The body picks up on subtle shifts in posture, vocal tone and facial expressions beneath conscious awareness.

What Are Common Everyday Examples of Somatic Resonance?

You have probably experienced somatic resonance in your everyday life without even being aware of it including experiences like:

• "Truth Chills": Feeling a wave of goosebumps, warmth or tears when someone else shares a deeply vulnerable story 

• Absorbing Stress: Walking into a room and immediately feeling your stomach knot or chest tighten when someone else is anxious

• Contagious Calm: Feeling your heart naturally slow down just by being around a calm, grounded person

What is Somatic Resonance in Therapy and How Is It Healing?

Somatic resonance in therapy is the therapist's ability to use her own physical body and nervous system as a diagnostic and healing tool.

Rather than just listening to words, the therapist tracks her own internal physical sensations to understand the client's unconscious, unspoken emotional states:

• Somatic Attunement: The therapist attunes to her own bodily responses as a way to understand the client's unexpressed emotions and unspoken trauma.

Somatic Resonance in Psychotherapy

• Implicit Communication: Client and therapist communicate through non-verbal cues like micro-expressions, posture shifts, vocal prosody (tone of voice, melody of the voice and vocal inflection). 

• Nervous System Co-regulation: The therapist maintains a grounded, regulated autonomic nervous system which acts as a biological anchor to help the client's dysregulated nervous system safely return to a calm state.

What Are Typical Examples of Somatic Resonance in Therapy?

Somatic resonance manifests through immediate physical tracking during a therapy session which might include:

• Uncovering Hidden Anger: A client speaks with a calm, pleasant voice, but the therapist suddenly feels tightness in her throat or stomach which signals the client's suppressed rage. While the therapist is sensing this, she checks first to ensure that these sensations are not related to anything that might be going on due to her own issues.

• Identifying Dissociation: The therapist suddenly feels an overwhelming fogginess, drowsiness or a sense of "spacing out". After she has checked in with herself internally and she determines that these feelings are not due to something that is going on for her personally, she becomes aware that this is the client's defense mechanisms against painful feelings (see my article: What is Trauma-Related Dissociation?).

• Gauging Grief: The therapist feels an unexpected ache in her chest or a sudden urge to cry just as the client touches upon a seemingly minor memory. Once she has checked in with herself and she has determined that these feelings are not related to anything that is going on personally within herself, the therapist becomes aware that these feelings are due to the client's unacknowledged grief (see my article: The Many Layers of Grief).

What Are the Benefits of Somatic Resonance in Mind-Body Oriented Therapy?

When a mind-body oriented psychotherapist is trained to use somatic resonance, it provides unique therapeutic benefits that traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) cannot provide. 

Working with somatic resonance shifts the therapy from a conversation about the past to a live in the moment experience. It provides a live physiological transformation in the here-and-now.

The healing benefits include:

• Correcting the Client's "Invisible" Somatic Narrative: Clients often enter therapy with stories that contradict their physiology. For instance, a client might talk calmly about a traumatic event without much, if any, emotion, but the therapist might respond with a sudden spike in adrenaline or chest tightness. This resonance alerts the therapist to hidden, unintegrated trauma. This allows the therapist to address the client's unspoken experience instead of just relating to the client's words. 

Somatic Resonance in Psychotherapy

• Accelerating Physiological Co-Regulation: Traumatized clients often lose their ability to self soothe. They can remain stuck in chronic states of fight, flight or freeze. Using somatic resonance, the therapist's stable, regulated nervous system acts as a biological pacemaker. Sitting with an emotionally regulated, anchored therapist allows the client to safely down-regulate using the therapist's calm state.

• Resolving Transference and Countertransference Safely: In traditional psychotherapy countertransference (the therapist's emotional reaction to the client) can cloud judgment. Somatic resonance transforms these reactions. By tracking her own physical sensations, the therapist can differentiate between her own experiences and the client's unspoken experiences. This prevents clinical blind spots.

• Allowing Survival Energy to Discharge Safely: Trauma survivors often fear their own internal sensations. This often leads to emotional numbing. However, when a therapist uses somatic resonance, she can pace the therapy session by micro-tracking the client's physical activation. This precise pacing ensures that the client can touch upon traumatic memories and safely discharge trapped survival energy without becoming overwhelmed or retraumatized.

• Re-establishing a Body-Based Sense of Safety: Healing from trauma requires that the body know that the danger is over. Since somatic resonance operates below the level of thought, the felt experience of feeling deeply met, mirrored and kept safe by the therapist updates the client's threat detection center (the brain's amygdala). This helps to rewire the client's baseline so they can feel genuinely safe again.

Which Mind-Body Oriented Therapy Modalities Use Somatic Resonance?

Somatic resonance is a basic part of several mind-body oriented therapies including:

• Somatic Experiencing

• Somatic IFS (Internal Family Systems Therapy)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS (Parts Work), EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many 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 during business hours or email me.

Understanding Why An Emotional Block Might Be Preventing You From Crying

If you have ever felt like your tears of sadness are "stuck", you know the frustration of feeling an emotional block (also known as emotional numbing). This often happens when your nervous system feels overwhelmed and enters into a self-protective "freeze" response.

Trauma Responses: The Freeze Response

You might feel the intense pressure of a lump in your throat, but your mind perceives this type crying as a potential threat to your emotional survival and safety. This "freeze" response is known as a trauma response. 

What Are the Reasons Why Your Tears Might Feel "Stuck"?

• Your Nervous System "Freeze" Response: When you experience prolonged stress or intense trauma, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) can become overloaded. Instead of triggering a fight-or-flight response, your body reacts with a survival mechanism called dissociation (also known as a dorsal vagal shutdown).  Your brain reduces the intensity of your emotions to protect you from being overwhelmed by them. This response acts like a "circuit breaker" that cuts off power to your tear ducts (see my article: What is Trauma-Related Dissociation?)

Trauma Responses: The Freeze Response 

• Emotional Exhaustion and Burnout: Crying is an active biological process that requires emotional energy. If you have been trying to "hold it together" for months or even years, your emotional reserves can become depleted. The sadness is there, but your body might not have the stamina to release the tears.

Emotional Exhaustion and Burnout

• Unconscious Conditioning and Safety Walls: If you grew up in a household where there were rules that you shouldn't cry or you were punished for showing emotional vulnerability, these experiences can teach your brain to suppress tears. If you might ahve been given the message that you had to be "independent" when you were a child so you had to keep your emotions suppressed. In addition, forcing yourself to "power through" can leave you with no room to pause, soften, feel your feelings and cry.  

Being Scolded For Crying as a Child?

• Mental Health Conditions: Even though depression is usually associated with sadness, it frequently shows up as emotional blunting or anhedonia. This can make you experience your feelings as "flat" which makes tears inaccessible.

How to Safely Release Blocked Emotions in Experiential Therapy

You can't force an emotional release by trying to force yourself to cry because when you put that kind of pressure on yourself, your nervous system tightens up even more. In order for you release pent up emotions, you need to have a sense of safety so your body can gently release the emotions.

When you are dealing with "stuck" emotions, traditional talk therapy can be too much of an intellectual process that keeps you in your head. You might gain intellectual insight into your problems, but you don't get an emotional release.

The most effective therapies for processing trauma and releasing "stuck" emotions are mind-body oriented therapies, also known as Experiential Therapies (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective For Healing Trauma Than Traditional Talk Therapy?).

The following are some of the main types of Experiential Therapy:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE): SE was developed by Dr. Peter Levine. SE treats emotional numbness as trapped survival energy from past stress or trauma. An SE therapist helps you to slow down so you can track subtle sensations (warmth, tingling, tightness) rather than asking you to only talk about what you're experiencing. By slowly introducing small amounts of "stuck" energy at a time (a process called "titration" in SE), your nervous system gently "thaws out" of its freeze response without becoming overwhelmed (see my article:  What Are the Benefits of SE to Heal Trauma?).

Somatic Experiencing Therapy

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): While EMDR is usually associated with the bilateral stimulation process it uses, it is deeply rooted in how the body stores distressing memories. During the processing phase of EMDR, you focus on a particular memory or, if you are stuck in a freeze response, you focus on the physical feeling of numbness and where you feel it in the body. Then you follow either a physical or tactile bilateral stimulus. EMDR can help you to process "stuck" emotional information. Over time, this can lead to a somatic discharge like crying or a deep sense of physical relief when your body and mind feel safe enough to do it (see my article: How Does EMDR Therapy Work: EMDR and the Brain).

EMDR Therapy

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work Therapy: In IFS an inability to cry due to a trauma-related freeze response is viewed as a protective strategy rather than a "broken" emotional system.  From an IFS perspective, this freeze response shields you from being overwhelmed by grief, fear or overwhelming sadness. In traditional psychotherapy the freeze response is often viewed as a symptom to eliminate, but in IFS the freeze response is appreciated as a protective aspect of the client. An IFS therapist uses the process called "unblending" to help the client to step away from the freeze response so that they can access Core Self, which is a part that is compassionate and curious to get to the underlying emotional wound that the emotional numbing protects (see my article: IFS Therapy is a Gentle Evidence-Based Trauma Therapy).

IFS Parts Work Therapy

• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP): An AEDP therapist treats the freeze response with a safe relational environment that gently helps to "thaw out" the nervous system. One of AEDP's primary goals is to "undo aloneness" where the therapist uses attachment-oriented affirmation ("I am here with you" or "We are doing this together") to build a secure base. When the brain registers true relational safety, the nervous system naturally begins to release it's survival-driven emotional numbing. The AEDP therapist also uses moment-to-moment tracking of the client's somatic cues. She will bring awareness to these somatic cues ("I notice that your jaw seems tight" or "I notice that your breath seems shallow. Can we slow down so we can see what's happening there?" Similar to IFS, AEDP recognizes that emotional numbing was once an adaptive defense when it wasn't possible to express emotions. So, she helps the client to process the emotional numbing. When the client begins to "thaw" from the emotional numbing, the therapist shares the emotional burden, validating the client's feelings and keeping the client anchored within their "window of tolerance" so that this energy can be discharged in a way that is manageable for the client (see my article: What is AEDP and How Does It Heal Trauma?).

What Are the Benefits of Integrating Experiential Therapies Like EMDR, IFS, AEDP and SE?

When an Experiential Therapist integrates EMDR, IFS, AEDP and SE (or any combination of these therapies), it means she is practicing an integrative trauma-informed "bottom up" approach to healing trauma.

Rather than using an intellectual top-down approach of talking about trauma conceptually, as would be done in traditional psychotherapy, the Experiential Therapist targets how trauma is held in the mind and in the nervous system. 

By using a combination of Experiential Therapy, the trauma therapist builds a complete plan that addresses the cognitive, emotional, relational and physical layers of your trauma. 

Get Help in Experiential Therapy

Whereas traditional psychotherapy is a "top down" approach, Experiential Therapies are a  "bottom up" approach to healing trauma.

Get Help in Experiential Therapy

The bottom-up approach of Experiential Therapy is often more effective than a top-down approach because because trauma, intense anxiety and emotional stress are stored in the lower brain regions and the autonomic nervous system which rational thoughts and traditional talk therapy cannot access.

If you are struggling with unresolved trauma, seek help in Experiential Therapy so you can heal your trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

EMDR Therapy - When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough 

Somatic Experiencing - A Mind-Body Oriented Therapy to Heal Trauma 

AEDP: How Does AEDP Process Emotions? 

IFS: How Are Emotions Processed in IFS Parts Work Therapy? 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy: What Are Traumatic Memories?

People who seek help in trauma therapy often want to know how traumatic memories differ from standard memories.

What Are Traumatic Memories?

Let's start by defining traumatic memories.

Traumatic Memories

Traumatic memories are vivid, deeply distressing recollections of overwhelming or life threatening experiences.

Unlike regular autobiographical memories, the brain processes and stores traumatic memories as a separate cognitive entity as compared to standard past narratives.

How Are Traumatic Memories Different From Standard Memories?

Ordinary memories function like a cohesive story with a clear beginning, middle and end. However, when a traumatic event occurs, the brain's survival mechanisms alter how the information is stored in the brain:

• Lack of Narrative Structure: Traumatic memories are often highly fragmented, disorganized or temporarily missing from conscious recollection.

• Sensory-Heavy Integration: Traumatic memories are often intensely loaded with sensory data. You might remember a specific smell, a sharp sound, a visual fragment, but you might lose track of the timeline or context.

• The Current Experience: A standard unpleasant memory is recalled as a past experience. However, certain traumatic memories feel like they are happening now rather than being something that occurred in the past. When this occurs, you can feel like you're being emotionally hijacked in the moment--even though it's a memory from the past (see my article: What is Emotional Hijacking?).

How Do Traumatic Memories Manifest?

Because traumatic memories are often stored dynamically in the nervous system, they can surface in certain distinct ways:

• Intrusive Flashbacks: You might have intrusive flashbacks where you have a sudden, involuntary re-experiencing of the event triggered by everyday sights, sounds or smells that are similar to the original trauma.

Traumatic Memories

• Somatic/Bodily Memories: The body can retain physical tension, chronic pain, a racing heart or gastrointestinal distress when you are triggered. This can occur even if you are not consciously thinking about the trauma. 

• Emotional Flashbacks: You might experience a sudden emotional wave of intense fear, helplessness, anger, shame or despair that feels completely disproportionate to your current safe surroundings (see my article: What Are Emotional Flashbacks?).

• Nightmares: Repetitive, disturbing dreams can replay certain aspects of the traumatic event.

How Can You Heal From Traumatic Memories?

Traumatic memories are often "stuck" in a raw, "unmetabolized" state and traditional talk therapy usually isn't sufficient to process these memories.

Trauma therapies are specifically designed to help the brain move the fragments out of survival mode and integrate them into standard autobiographical memory. 

Common evidence-based trauma therapy include:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help with processing traumatic memories so these memories lose their charge (see my article: How Does EMDR Therapy Work?).

Traumatic Memories

• SE (Somatic Experiencing): SE focuses on releasing the traumatic energy trapped in the nervous system (see my article: What is Somatic Experiencing?).

Traumatic Memories

• IFS (Internal Family Systems Parts Work Therapy): Traumatic memories are healed by establishing a compassionate internal relationship between your Core Self and the wounded parts of your psyche. This gentle, non-pathologizing approach treats trauma as a system of protective and wounded internal parts of you (see my article: What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work Therapy?).

Traumatic Memories

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy): AEDP heals traumatic memories by processing overwhelming emotions within a safe therapeutic relationship to rewire the brain's trauma response (see my article: What is AEDP and How Does It Heal Trauma?).

Get Help in Trauma Therapy

If you are experiencing emotional trauma, waiting to get help in trauma therapy can cause the trauma to become more entrenched. This can lead to more severe psychological, physical and relational complications over time.

Get Help in Trauma Therapy

Rather than waiting or struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist so you can overcome your trauma and live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Reacting to Your Present Circumstances Based on Your Traumatic Past

What is Complex Trauma? 

What is the Difference Between Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? 

How Can Unresolved Trauma Affect Your Relationship? 

 

How Does Experiential Therapy Achieve Psychological Breakthroughs?

In my prior article, How is Experiential Therapy Different Than Traditional Talk Therapy?, I began a discussion about why Experiential Therapy is more effective than traditional talk therapy.

Experiential Therapy Achieves Breakthroughs

In the current article, I'm focusing on how Experiential Therapy achieves psychological breakthroughs.

First, it's important to understand what types of therapies come under the umbrella of Experiential Therapy.

Experiential Therapies includes many mind-body oriented therapies such as:

• EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

• Somatic Experiencing - also known as SE

• AEDP - Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy

• IFS - Internal Family Systems Parts Work Therapy

• EFT - Emotionally Focused Therapy For Couples

How Does Experiential Therapy Achieve Psychological Breakthroughs?

Experiential Therapy achieves psychological breakthroughs by:

• Bypassing the Analytic Mind: Many clients are very good at "talking about" their problems without being in touch with how they feel. This is especially true for clients who have had prior therapy. Experiential therapy uses the mind-body connection so that therapy isn't just an intellectualized experience. Instead, clients can get to the root of their problems in a more effective way by getting to unconscious issues rather than remaining on an intellectual level.

Experiential Therapy Achieves Breakthroughs

• Engaging Somatic Memories: Trauma and chronic stress are stored in the nervous system rather than just in the logical mind. Rather than focusing only on what the client thinks, an Experiential therapist emphasizes body awareness. Instead of only asking, "What do you think?", the Experiential therapist will ask, "What do you feel and where do you feel it in your body?" This helps the client to have a felt sense of their problems. This felt sense can release trapped physical tension and stress. 

• Memory Consolidation: A breakthrough requires updating old neural scripts. In Experiential therapy the brain updates the old memory with new adaptive information with the help of the therapist.

• Emotional Catharsis: Psychological shifts often require an emotional release. Examples of this include: Expressing long suppressed anger, grief and shame. 

Psychological Breakthroughs With Experiential Therapy

Rather than just gaining only an intellectual insight into their problems, clients experience a felt shift.  They can rewrite their emotional scripts through action (see my article: Healing From the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough to Heal).

Experiential Therapy Achieves Breakthroughs

For example, instead of just understanding their childhood trauma, they experience a felt sense of what has held them back and what has shifted for them in Experiential Therapy in an embodied way. This somatic and emotional alignment changes their internal representation of their world which leads to psychological and behavioral change.

Get Help in Experiential Therapy

If you have been struggling with unresolved problems and traditional therapy has been unhelpful, consider working with a licensed mental health professional who is an Experiential therapist.

The psychological breakthroughs can lead to a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Article:

Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy? 

Coping With the Death of an Abusive Parent

One of the most complicated experiences of grief is coping with the death of a parent who abused you.

This is especially true if there were times when this parent was kind and caring and, at other times, abusive or just abusive most of the time, which can create confusion for the child being abused. And that confusion often continues into adulthood.

Coping With the Death of an Abusive Parent

In a prior article, Unresolved Trauma: Coping With a Passive Parent Who Didn't Protect You From Abuse, I wrote about an example of this issue in the vignette in that article.

Under these circumstances, it's common to feel a mixture of feelings including relief, sadness, grief, guilt and shame.

Since the parent who abused you is dead and if they didn't express remorse, this means that they can no longer express their remorse and ask for forgiveness. For many adult children, this is its own form of loss.

How to Process Your Emotions While Coping With the Death of An Abusive Parent

• Acknowledge All Your Feelings: It's important to acknowledge all of the mixed feelings you might have towards your dead parent--all the messy feelings like relief, grief, sadness, anger, resentment, guilt and shame.

Coping With the Death of an Abusive Parent

• Be Aware of Your Personal Survival Strategy: Whether your brain and body are numbing or your mind is overanalyzing, recognize that these are your coping strategies for the moment. Grounding techniques and breathing exercises can help you to stay relatively calm. Exercise, even walking, can help you to release some of this "stuck" energy.

• Grieve For the Lost Potential: You might find yourself grieving for the parent you wish you had and deserved to have in addition to any grief you might feel for your actual parent.

Why is Grieving Under These Circumstances So Complicated?

• Biological Paradox: Your brain's attachment system, which seeks connection, and your threat system, which detects danger, are both activated simultaneously. This can lead to internal chaos for you.

• If There Was No Reconciliation: Death removes any chance for the parent to understand, acknowledge and make amends for the abuse. You are left with many unresolved and complicated feelings that you need to work out on your own or, preferably, with the help of a licensed mental health professional who has an expertie in this area.

• Fragmented Memories: It's not unusual for a parent to be warm and loving at one point and threatening and abusive at other times. This can make it very difficult to understand who this parent was to you and how you feel about them. If the abuse occurred when you were young, you might even experience this parent almost as if they are two different people in your life.

• Lack of Validation: Other people might praise your deceased parent at a funeral or memorial service which can feel isolating because it doesn't match your reality. Even close relatives who might know your parent's abusive nature might tell you, "Don't speak ill of the dead" which can also make you feel alone and lonely in your experience.

What Can You Do to Heal?

• Validate All Your Feelings: Accept that it is normal and common to feel many contradictory feelings at the same time. 

• Prioritize Your Peace of Mind: You are not obligated to place your deceased parent who abused you on a pedestal, nor are you obligated to attend their funeral if it will compromise your peace of mind. Others might not understand or agree, but you have to do what is right for you.

• Externalize Your Emotional Pain: Writing a no-holds-barred letter, which you do not send, or writing in your journal can help you to express all your contradictory feelings and begin to process any unfinished business between you and your deceased parent.

• Get Help in Trauma Therapy: Grief counselors often don't have specialized training in how to deal with complex grief like this. Working with a trauma therapist, a licensed mental health professional who is trained in complex trauma, can help you to work through your mixed feelings and overcome the unresolved trauma. There are various modalities of trauma therapy including:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing 

• Parts Work Therapy (IFS and Ego States Therapy)

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

As a Trauma Therapist, I have helped many 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 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Grieving For a Parent Who Wasn't There For You

Coping With the Loss of a Loved One: Common Reactions 

Coping With Complicated Grief 

Mourning the Loss of a Father You Have Never Known 

Letting Go of Resentment