Overcoming Fear of Abandonment in Trauma Therapy

Fear of abandonment is an issue that is more common than most people realize.  

Fear of Abandonment

Prior Articles

In the past, I have written about abandonment issues in prior articles including:

Self Abandonment - Part 1 and Part 2

How to Overcome Fear of Abandonment

The Current Article

The current article will focus on:

• What is Fear of Abandonment?

• What Causes Fear of Abandonment?

• What Are Signs and Symptoms of Fear of Abandonment?

• How Can Trauma Therapy Help to Heal Fear of Abandonment?

What is Fear of Abandonment?

Some of the signs and symptoms of fear of abandonment might include some or all of the following:

• Fear of Rejection: People who have abandonment issues often have a fear of being rejected--even when there is no objective reason to have this fear.

• Difficulty Trusting Others: A fear of trusting others often involves a fear that someone will hurt or leave them.

Fear of Abandonment

• Dependency: A fear of abandonment can lead to someone becoming overly dependent on others to give them reassurance and validation.

• Relationship Problems: This includes getting involved in a relationship too quickly, making unhealthy relationship choices, sabotaging a relationship or staying in an unhealthy relationship to avoid being alone (see my article: Is Your Fear of Being Alone Keeping You in an Unhealthy Relationship?).

• Low Self Esteem: Low self esteem can create difficulties in all areas of life including developing connections with others (see my article: Overcoming Low Self Esteem).

What Causes Fear of Abandonment?

Fear of abandonment can develop in many different ways.

The most common reason for abandonment issues is childhood trauma including:

• Losing a Parent (see my article: Fatherless Daughters)

• Childhood Emotional Neglect (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?)

• Inconsistent and/or Chaotic Caregiving (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children From Dysfunctional Families)

• Physical and/or sexual abuse

Other possible causes:

• Unresolved Trauma: Physical or emotional abuse at any time in life can lead to fears of being abandoned (see my article: Unresolved Trauma Can Negatively Impact Your Ability to Be in Romantic Relationships).

• Relationship Instability: Unstable relationships can create a sense of insecurity.

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Fear of Abandonment?

Common signs include:

• People pleasing (see my article: Trauma and the Fawn Response)

• Jealousy including:

• Jealousy of other friendships or family relationships

• Jealousy of prior relationships (see my article: Retroactive Jealousy)

Jealousy and Fear of Abandonment

• Problems trusting a significant other's intentions--even when there is no objective reason not to trust

• Difficulty being emotionally vulnerable and sexually intimate

• Needing to feel controlled by a partner

• Needing to control a partner

• Getting involved in a relationship too quickly before getting to know the other person

• Settling for an unhealthy relationship to avoid being alone

How Can Trauma Therapy Help With Fear of Abandonment?

Trauma therapy is a general term for different types of therapy developed specifically to help clients overcome trauma (see my article: How Does Trauma Therapy Work?)

Trauma therapy includes:

• EMDR Therapy

• Parts Work Therapy: Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Ego States Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Hypnotherapy (Also known as Clinical Hypnosis)

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases, illustrates how trauma therapy can help to overcome abandonment issues.

Alice

When Alice was five years old, her father left the family suddenly and they never heard from him again.

After her father left, Alice had nightmares almost every night where she saw her father and she would ask him why he left, but the dream always ended before he responded.  When she woke up in the morning, her dream seemed so real that she felt like she had actually seen her father--until she became fully awake and she realized it was a dream.

After her father abandoned the family, Alice's mother had to work three jobs to support the family, As a result, Alice spent most of the time with her elderly maternal grandparents, who criticized Alice's father to her. In response, Alice wanted to tell her grandparents that she loved and missed her father, but she was too afraid to sound like she was contradicting them, so she kept her sadness to herself.

After her father deserted the family, Alice had a hard time making friends. She lacked confidence in herself and she believed the other children didn't like her.  She was also afraid that if she tried to make friends with anyone, she would be rejected.  So, Alice spent a lot time alone in her room.

When she got to high school, she was aware that many people in her school were dating, but her self esteem was so low that she didn't believe anyone would like her.

When she got to college, she met a friendly young woman, Tina, who took Alice under her wing and introduced her to some of the other young women at the college. Tina was so outgoing and friendly that Alice met a lot of people on campus through her, but she still didn't feel confident.

After she graduated from college, Alice moved into an apartment in New York City with Tina. She found a job as a software engineer and she mostly worked on her own. Other than the friends that Tina introduced her to, Alice had no other friends of her own.

She was aware her low self esteem was holding her back personally and professionally, so she sought help in therapy to try to understand why she was having these problems.  She wanted to go out on dates, but she was afraid that if she liked someone, he might reject her.

Fear of Abandonment and Trauma Therapy

Her therapist was a trauma therapist who had advanced skills in trauma therapy.  After her therapist did a thorough family history, she traced Alice's fear of abandonment to her father's disappearance (see my article: Why is Family History Important in Therapy?).

Her therapist used a combination of EMDR Therapy and Parts Work Therapy to help Alice to heal from her trauma.

As Alice began to develop a little more self confidence, she began dating a man she met at a discussion group. Tom was kind, intelligent and patient with Alice but, even though she knew she had no objective reason for not trusting him, she had a hard time letting her guard down when she was with him (see my article: What Does Fear of Abandonment and Fear of Engulfment Look Like in a Relationship?).

Healing from her childhood trauma was neither quick nor easy. But, over time, with the help of her therapist, Alice was able to separate her childhood trauma of being abandoned by her father from her experiences with Tom (see my article: Overcoming Trauma: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now").

Fear of Abandonment and Trauma Therapy

As she opened up more, her relationship with Tom improved and she was able to make new friends more easily.

Although she felt more emotionally secure with herself, there were still times when she had setbacks but, overall, she felt her life was opening up to new and rewarding experiences.

Conclusion

Abandonment issues usually stem from childhood issues, but they can also develop or become exacerbated by an unhealthy adult relationships or experiences.

Fear of being abandoned rarely, if ever, gets resolved on its own.

Trauma therapy is specifically designed to help clients to overcome trauma.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome traumatic experiences like fear of abandonment or other unresolved trauma.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has advanced training and skills in trauma therapy.

Overcoming trauma can help you to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?)

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.

How to Overcome Fear of Abandonment

I've written prior articles about fear of abandonment (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Fear of Abandonment).

Overcoming Fear of Abandonment

In the current article I'm getting into my more detail to explore fear of abandonment.

What is Fear of Abandonment?

Fear of abandonment is a common form of anxiety including a fear of being abandoned by family members and significant others.

How Does Fear of Abandonment Manifest?

Fear of abandonment can manifest as

• Clinginess
• Distrust
• Difficulty establishing and maintaining close relationships

What Causes Fear of Abandonment?

Everyone's experience is different.

Generally, fear of abandonment is often caused by past experiences and unresolved trauma including past relationship trauma and/or early childhood trauma.

What Are Some of the Signs and Symptoms of Fear of Abandonment?

    Emotional Signs and Symptoms include:

• Anxiety and panic: Feeling overwhelmed and distressed by the possibility of being abandoned

• Distrust: Difficulty trusting others and fear others will leave

Overcoming Fear of Abandonment

• Sensitivity to Criticism or Rejection: Reacting intensely to perceived criticism or rejection

• Fear of Intimacy: Fear of getting close to someone and, possibly, pushing them away if there is already a relationship

• Worry When It Seems Things Are Going Too Well: Feeling anxious when things seem to be going too well due to fear it will not last

Behavioral Signs and Symptoms include:

• Clinginess: Being overly dependent and needing constant reassurance

• Manipulative Behavior: Trying to control or manipulate others to avoid being left

• People Pleasing: Going to great lengths to avoid conflict and rejection

• Sabotaging Relationships: Intentionally pushing people away or ending a relationship before they can be abandoned

• Social Isolation: Avoiding social situations or relationships to avoid getting hurt or abandoned (see my article: Overcoming Loneliness and Social Isolation).

What Are the Roots of Fear of Abandonment?

• Childhood Experiences: Being emotionally neglected, abused or experiencing  inconsistent parenting can lead to emotional insecurity and a fear of being abandoned (see my article: How Unresolved Childhood Trauma Affect Adult Relationships).

• Traumatic Events: Unresolved childhood trauma, such as the death of a parent or other loved ones, can develop into a fear of being abandoned.

• Anxious Attachment Style: People who have an anxious attachment style can develop a fear of being abandoned.

How Can You Overcome Fear of Abandonment?

• Self Care: Practicing self compassion, engaging in activities that enhance your well-being and building a strong sense of self

• Developing Healthy Relationships: Establishing healthy relationships with people who are trustworthy, reliable and responsible 

• Seeking Emotional Support: Seeking support among loved ones who are emotionally supportive 
• 
  
• Seeking Help in Trauma Therapy: Making a commitment to work through unresolved trauma in trauma therapy (see my article: What is Trauma Therapy?).

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how trauma therapy can help an individual to overcome fear of abandonment:

Sara

When Sara first started dating Ed, she enjoyed her time with him. But as time went on and they developed stronger feelings for each other, Sara felt more insecure and anxious. She began worrying time that Ed would leave her now that she was in love with him. 

She would ask him repeatedly for reassurance that he wasn't planning on leaving her, which he was willing to do at first. But, after a while, he realized that no amount of reassurance would relieve her anxiety.

Overcoming Fear of Abandonment

When her anxiety felt out of control, she sought help in trauma therapy. 

In trauma therapy, she found out that her anxiety and insecurity had nothing to do with Ed--it mostly involved unresolved trauma regarding the emotional neglect she experienced as a child.

Over time, Sara learned how to separate her childhood experiences from her relationship with Ed. It wasn't easy, but she learned how to regulate her emotions during those moments when she felt anxious around Ed so she could be more present with him (see my article: Overcoming Childhood Trauma: Learn to Separate Your Experiences From Back Then From Your Experiences Now).

Her therapist also used EMDR Therapy to help her to overcome her unresolved childhood trauma so it was no longer getting triggered when she was with Ed.

The work in trauma therapy was neither quick nor easy, but Sara overcame her anxiety and she and Ed became much closer.

Conclusion

Fear of abandonment is a common form of anxiety.

Fear of abandonment can come up for a variety of reasons, as mentioned earlier in this article.

If this anxiety isn't addressed in therapy, it can get worse over time, so it's better to get help sooner rather than later in trauma therapy.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Many people don't realize they have fear of abandonment until they enter into an exclusive relationship where emotional vulnerability comes up.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you have tried to overcome fear of abandonment on your own without success, you could benefit from working with a skilled trauma therapist who has training and expertise in trauma therapy, like EMDR or other types of trauma therapy like AEDP, Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing and other forms of Experiential Therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma)

Once you have worked through your fear and anxiety about being abandoned, you can live a more meaningful life.

About Me

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

With over 20 years of experience as trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

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.

 

Fatherless Daughters: What is the Potential Emotional Impact of Growing Up Without a Father?

The potential impact for girls who grow up without a father can be profoundly traumatic.  

Fatherless Daughters

What is Fatherlessness?

Fatherlessness is defined as a lack of an emotional bond between a father and his child.  This can be the result of the father's death, abuse, addiction, incarceration, abandonment of the family or other issues.

What Role Does a Father Play in a Girl's Life?

Although psychology has mostly focused on the role of the mother, greater attention is now being paid to the father's role in a young girl's life.

A Healthy Father-Daughter Relationship

A healthy relationship with a father has an important positive impact on a girl's:

• Confidence
• Self esteem
• Self image
• Beliefs about herself
• Perspective on men
• Ability to trust
• Need for approval

A Healthy Father-Daughter Relationship

All other things being equal, women who grew up in a healthy father-daughter relationship are more likely to have:

• Self confidence
• Confidence in their choices
• Healthy body image
• Better academic achievement
• A greater ability to trust
• A greater ability to take risks
• A better opinion of men
• More meaningful relationships with men in general
• Better decision-making capability and choices in the men they choose for romantic partners

Mitigating Factors That Help Fatherless Girls in Their Psychological and Emotional Development

Although this article focuses on many of the potential problems usually associated with fatherless daughters, it's important to note that not all fatherless daughters grow up to have the problems outlined in this article. 

A Loving Grandfather With His Granddaughter

For many of them there are mitigating factors that help them in their psychological and emotional development, including other father figures like uncles, grandfathers and other healthy males who take on a paternal role.

In addition, girls who work with a qualified mental health professional can overcome many of the potential problems that are usually associated with being a fatherless daughter.  

The Potential Emotional Impact For Women Who Grew Up Without a Father

Unfortunately, girls who lose their father at a young age are at a higher risk for problems as an adult in the areas mentioned above where girls in healthy father-daughter relationships excel. 

Fatherless Daughters

There is a derogatory term, "Daddy issues" which is mostly used in social media and has no place in psychology. This popular derogatory term describes women who have been negatively impacted by the loss of their father at a young age.  

Women who grow up without a father (or an inconsistent father) often have an anxious attachment style, including fear of abandonment.  

As children, they often blamed themselves for the loss of their father and, similarly, they can blame themselves for problems in their adult relationships with men.  

In addition, they might have grown up feeling that their father wasn't around because their father didn't love them or they were in some way inherently unlovable. This can carry over into their romantic relationships with men where their low self esteem causes them to choose men who don't treat them well.

Signs That a Woman Has a Father Wound

Fatherless daughters often:

• Date Older Men: They often choose older men as romantic partners. Older men can represent security and protection to them.

• Feel Overly Anxious or Jealous: Fatherless daughters often worry that their partner might leave them for someone else or abandon them in some other way, which is related to their abandonment issues with their absent father. This anxiety and jealousy can ruin a relationship.

• Need Constant Reassurance: This is related to their deep-rooted fear of abandonment.  They might fear that their partner is angry with them or that they have made wrong decisions. This need for constant reassurance can take its toll on a relationship.

• Fear Abandonment: As previously mentioned, fear of abandonment can be a big issue for women who grew up without a father. They often place a lot of importance on being in a committed relationship--at any cost--even if their partner doesn't treat them well. Their fear of being abandoned can have the effect of driving a partner away.  It can also cause these women to be serial monogamists where they jump quickly from one relationship to another (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Fear of Abandonment).

• Get Into One Unhealthy Relationship After Another: Since they often fear being alone, they can repeat dysfunctional patterns of getting into one toxic relationship after  another.  They might choose men who cheat on them, misuse drugs or alcohol, abuse them and mistreat them in other ways (see my article: Unhealthy Relationships: Bad Luck or Poor Choices?).

Once again, I want to emphasize that the problems discussed in this article are not universally true for all fatherless daughters.

There are girls who are emotionally resilient who don't experience the problems discussed in this article.  

There can be many factors, including the mitigating factors discussed above or other related reasons why these girls don't develop these problems.  

More research is needed to identify these factors.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

As previously mentioned, the loss of a father at a young age is often detrimental, especially as girls develop into women and carry the trauma of the loss into their adult life, including their relationships.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you were traumatized by the loss of your father, it's never too late to get help.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma specialist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Many people experience increased personal meaning in their life and posttraumatic growth after they overcome their losses in trauma therapy.

With the help of a skilled trauma therapist, you can work through your loss so that you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individuals overcome trauma and loss so they can lead happier lives.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out 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.

What is Complex Trauma?

Psychological trauma can be a single event, like shock trauma, which includes being the victim of a robbery, a car accident, an assault or living through a devastating hurricane where your house is destroyed, among other things. 

What is Complex Trauma?

Complex trauma involves many related traumatic events experienced by children, including abuse and profound neglect, that occur over an extended period of time and the difficulties that arise as a result of adapting to and surviving these events.

According to SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), 1 in 7 children experience abuse or neglect.

What Are the Symptoms of Complex Trauma For Adults?

The symptoms of complex trauma can include any of the following:

• Feeling anxious
• Feeling depressed
• Experiencing flashbacks
• Experiencing nightmares
• Avoiding circumstances that remind you of the traumatic events (emotional avoidance)
• Having difficulty managing emotions
• Perceiving yourself in a distorted way
• Feeling worthless
• Avoiding or having difficulty with personal relationships
• Feeling disconnected from yourself or others (a form of dissociation)
• Having problems remembering parts of your childhood 
• Having difficulty providing a comprehensive narrative of your childhood memories, which can include fragmented memories.
• Experiencing sleep problems
• Experiencing sexual problems
• Experiencing medical problems, like Type 2 diabetes
• Feeling body aches, including migraines, stomach and digestive problems, arthritis
• Experiencing low energy or fatigue
• Misusing drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food
• Engaging in other compulsive or impulsive behavior, including compulsive gambling, sexual compulsivity, and other behaviors

Examples of Complex Trauma

Complex trauma usually begins in childhood.  These events are recurrent, overwhelming and longstanding, and they are usually perpetrated by other adults, like family members, family friends, neighbors, clergy, and so on.  These incidents often occur over a span of weeks, months or years.

Examples of complex trauma include:

• Physical abuse

• Emotional abuse

• Sexual abuse (see my article: Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Abuse)

• Profound child emotional neglect (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?)

• Abandonment

• Parentification (role reversal where child takes on the parental role)

• Medical abuse or trauma

• Torture or being held captive

• Living in a war zone or in an area with civil unrest

And so on.

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy For Complex Trauma

The following mind-body oriented therapies are often effective to overcome complex trauma:

• EMDR Therapy which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (see my article: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain)

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy (see my article: Trauma Therapy: The Therapeutic Benefits of Somatic Experiencing)

• AEDP, which stands for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (see my articles: What is AEDP?  Part 1 and Part 2).

• Hypnotherapy, which is also known as Clinical Hypnosis (see my article: What is Clinical Hypnosis?)

• Parts Work Therapy: Ego States Therapy of Internal Family System (see my article: How Parts Work Can Be Empowering)

Getting Help in Therapy

If you are experiencing complex trauma symptoms, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Once you have worked through your unresolved trauma, you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a trauma therapist who works 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 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy

In my prior article, How EMDR Works: EMDR and the Brain, I gave an overview of the basics of EMDR, including how emotional trauma affects the brain and how EMDR therapy helps to process trauma.

Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy

In this article, which is a continuation of this topic, I'll give a composite scenario to demonstrate how EMDR therapy works.

I'll delve into some of the aspects of EMDR that are uniquely helpful to healing emotional trauma (for an overview of EMDR, see my article:  What is EMDR?)

As always, this composite is a combination of many different cases to protect confidentiality.

Alice
Alice came to therapy because she knew she was overreacting in her relationship with her boyfriend, Ed.

A day or so after she got angry with him, in hindsight, Alice could see that she had overacted, and she felt ashamed and guilty about it.  She would apologize and tell Ed that she would try not to be so reactive, but then a week or so later, she would find herself overreacting again, and this became an ongoing pattern in their relationship.

Alice loved Ed very much and she knew that Ed loved her.  When she was calm, she knew she could trust him, but when she was in the throes of an overreaction, she forgot all of this and she reacted as if he didn't love her and he wasn't trustworthy.

She would often feel rejected and abandoned by things that he said--only to realize afterwards that she overreacted once again.

This happened to Alice so frequently that she was beginning to feel like she was losing her mind.  After she calmed down, she couldn't understand how she could have felt so sure that he was rejecting and abandoning her when she was upset.

She asked herself:  Why couldn't she remember that he loved her?

Even though Ed was patient, Alice knew that her reactions would erode their relationship after a while. She knew she couldn't keep accusing him of being unloving and then apologize afterwards.  She knew she had to do something.

Having been in talk therapy in the past to deal with a traumatic childhood, Alice felt she needed to try a different type of psychotherapy, so when a friend told her how much EMDR helped her, Alice decided to give it a try.

Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy

As we discussed Alice's family history, it became apparent that she was uprooted quite a bit from infancy to adolescence, due to her single mother's substance abuse problems.

During that time she was moved from her mother's home to her maternal grandmother's home and then to an aunt's house.

Finally, when she was a teenager, she moved back with her mother.  By then, her mother was sober, but her mother was still emotionally neglectful.

As an only child, Alice remembered feeling lonely and unloved.  Even though her grandmother and aunt took care of Alice's basic needs, they remained emotionally distant from her.  Alice would pray to have a loving adult come into her life, but she remained without emotional support.

Emotional Neglect:  The Past Affects the Present

As an adult, during her first therapy, which was talk therapy, Alice learned to make intellectual connections between the childhood emotional neglect and her feelings of being unlovable but, even though she had an intellectual understanding, talk therapy didn't help her to actually overcome these feelings.  So, she experienced herself as carrying around this heavy emotional burden throughout her life.

She usually managed to make only one or two close friends because she had a hard time trusting people.

While in college, even though she wanted to be in a loving romantic relationship, she had an even more difficult time trusting men because she felt too emotionally vulnerable to open up (see my article:  An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting But Dreading Love).

After college, having been in talk therapy, Alice knew that her feelings of being unlovable as an adult were connected to her early childhood neglect, but she didn't know how to change this.

She often wondered if she would ever feel emotionally safe enough to enter into a serious romantic relationship (see my article:  Adults Who Were Emotionally Neglected as Children Often Have a Hard Time Trusting).

When she met Ed, she knew he was one of the kindest, gentlest, loving men she ever met.

At first, they got along well.  But as they continued to see each other and got closer, after several months, Alice began to feel emotionally vulnerable and unsafe.

She knew these feelings weren't related to anything that Ed was doing or not doing, but she couldn't stop herself from seeing even the most innocuous remarks that he made as rejecting and abandoning.

During their last argument before Alice started therapy, Alice exploded when Ed said he had to work late and he couldn't see her.  She accused him of lying, not loving her, abandoning her and not caring about her feelings.

Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy

Afterwards, Alice realized that she had overreacted, and she knew that Ed wasn't lying and that he genuinely cared for her.

As Alice recounted this argument and other similar arguments, she broke down in tears.  She said she was sick and tired of feeling this way, tired of accusing Ed of not loving her, and tired of the arguments that she started with him.  She also feared that she would bring about the very thing that she feared most--that Ed would get tired of her and leave her.

Developing Coping Skills as Part of Resourcing Before EMDR Processing
Since Alice came to do EMDR, I began by helping her to develop better coping skills so she could cope with her feelings both in our therapy sessions as we processed her traumatic background as well as in her everyday life.

We focused on helping her to respond instead of react (see my article:  Responding Instead of Reacting).

This phase of EMDR is called resourcing (for more details about resourcing, see  a prior article that I wrote).

As someone who was emotionally neglected as a child, Alice primarily knew only two maladaptive ways of attempting to cope:  overacting or emotionally shutting down.  She knew intellectually that neither way worked for her, but she didn't know what else to do.

After the resourcing phase of EMDR, we were ready to begin processing her traumatic childhood experiences which were triggering her emotional reactions in her current relationship.

Before we started, I reminded Alice that she was in complete control of the process in terms of stopping or pausing the EMDR processing if she felt too overwhelmed.

This is very important for people who have experienced early childhood trauma where they were overwhelmed, there was no one to soothe them, and they felt helpless to do anything about it.

Bridging Back in EMDR
Then, we used a recent memory of Alice being upset with Ed and used that to go back to her earliest memory of feeling this way as a child.

This concept in EMDR is derived from clinical hypnosis and it's known variously as the affect bridge, the float back technique or bridging (see my article:  Bridging Back to Heal).

How EMDR Works:  Bridging Back to Heal

Sensing her emotions and where she felt these emotions in her body, Alice was able to remember an early memory where she was being uprooted once again from her grandmother's house to her aunt's house and how scared and unloved she felt (see my article:  Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

This earlier memory turned out to be significant in terms of how she got triggered in her current relationship.

EMDR and Imaginal Interweaves
EMDR uses a concept called "imaginal interweaves" to help clients to process emotional trauma.  These imaginal interweaves are used to help clients to feel emotionally supported during the EMDR processing of the trauma memory (see Laurel Parnell's book, Attachment-Focused EMDR).

The goal of EMDR is not to analyze the memories.  After all, many people who come for EMDR therapy have already analyzed their memories in talk therapy and they have intellectual insight.  After talk therapy, what they often don't experience is emotional healing.

This is not to say that talk therapy doesn't work because I continue to do talk therapy.  But there are certain people with early trauma that aren't healed by talk therapy.

So, rather than analyzing the trauma, the goal of EMDR is to process the traumatic memories with some form of bilateral stimulation, BLS (see my prior article for an explanation of BLS) so that the client is no longer affected by the trauma.

To use imaginal interweaves, clients are asked to imagine protective and nurturing people who might have helped them during the trauma.

These protective and nurturing people can be actual people in the client's life who are either from now or back then.   They can also be people from movies, TV programs, books or people from history.

Imaginal interweaves can include anyone and EMDR clients are only limited by their imagination.

They can include an imagined "ideal mother," who is different from their actual mother.

EMDR and Imaginal Interweaves

The idea of using imaginal interweaves is not for the client to believe that anything other than what actually occurred is what happened.  The logical part of the brain knows that, in actuality, there was no one who helped.

But the emotional part of the brain can take in these imaginal interweaves and this is emotionally healing.  This is why imaginal interweaves they're used.  Al Pesso, who developed Psychomotor Therapy, refers to this as new symbolic memories (see my article:  Mind-Body Psychotherapy: Healing With New Symbolic Memories).

The Therapist's Empathic Attunement 
An EMDR therapist needs to know more than how to do EMDR.  She also needs to be exquisitely attuned to what's going on with the client and be able to track the client's emotional experience.

A skilled EMDR therapist needs to be in sync with the client.  This is often referred to as a "right brain to right brain" connection, which means that the therapist's right brain, the area of the brain for empathic attunement, senses what's going on emotionally with the client.

This also presupposes that the client and the EMDR therapist have already developed a good enough working alliance so that the client will allow this (see my articles:  The Creation of the Holding Environment in Psychotherapy and The Therapist's Empathic Attunement Can Be Emotionally Reparative to the Client).

The EMDR therapist must also be able to repair whatever ruptures might occur in therapy (see my article: Ruptures and Repairs in Therapy).

Whenever Alice became stuck in the EMDR processing, we used an imaginal interweave to help her to get unstuck so that the processing could continue.

Gradually, over time, Alice's level of emotional disturbance about this memory was significantly reduced.

EMDR and Generalizable Effects
At the same time, she was much less reactive in her relationship with Ed, so we could tell that the EMDR processing was have a generalizing effect.

Generalizable effects in EMDR means that the healing effects of EMDR are also carrying over to other memories and current interpersonal interactions.

Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy

Completing EMDR Therapy
By the time that Alice completed EMDR therapy, she was no longer overreacting.  She was also no longer feeling unlovable, rejected or abandoned in her relationship.  She was able to free herself emotionally from her traumatic history so that she could live her life unencumbered by these memories.  She was also able could to develop meaningful friendships.

Getting Help in Therapy:
Reacting negatively to the present based on the past is a common experience for people who have experienced emotional trauma, especially if they experienced early childhood trauma.

If you feel that unresolved trauma is keeping you stuck, rather than spending your life reacting based on your past, you owe it to yourself to seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained in a mind-body oriented experiential therapy, like EMDR (see my articles:  Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs) and Reacting to the Present Based on Your Traumatic Past).

About Me:
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialities is helping clients to overcome emotional trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?

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.