What is Complex Trauma?

While a single event, like a car accident or a natural disaster, can cause acute shock trauma, complex trauma refers to a severe psychological condition resulting from chronic, repetitive interpersonal wounds. 

Often rooted in childhood abuse, profound neglect, or ongoing domestic captivity, complex trauma occurs over an extended period, forcing the individual to develop survival adaptations that impact long-term mental health. As a trauma therapist in New York City, I see firsthand how understanding the multi-layered nature of Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is the vital first step toward true clinical recovery and systemic healing.

What is Complex Trauma?

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)

Get 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 Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

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

I provide a free 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

I see clients in my office in Greenwich Village in New York City and online.

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

Grieving For a Parent Who Wasn't There For You

Grief for a deceased parent isn't always related to how close you were.

Grieving For a Parent Who Wasn't There For You

In fact, grief related to the loss of a parent you weren't close to can be even more intense than grief for a nurturing parent because it often involves grieving for what  you hoped for and never got (see links for my articles about grief below).

For adults who have lost a parent under these circumstances, part of the grief is knowing that the warm loving relationship you might have wished for can never be experienced after your parent died. The death can bring a painful finality to your wish and wash away any hopes you might have had to improve the relationship.

Clinical Vignette:

The following clinical vignette is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed:

Alex

Alex was in his mid-30s when he received a phone call from his stepmother, a woman he had never met, telling Alex that his father had terminal cancer. She told him that his father was in hospice and he wasn't expected to live more than a few days.

Before Alex could respond, his stepmother put his father on the phone to say a few words. It was clear to Alex that his father was heavily medicated and Alex didn't know what to say. His father asked for Alex's forgiveness for walking out on Alex and Alex's mother more than 30 years ago. He said he regretted not ever contacting Alex after he walked out on them.

Alex was shocked and confused. He didn't want to reject his father's dying wish, so he told his father that he forgave him. Then, his stepmother got back on the phone and told Alex that his father was too weak to talk any more. Before she hung up,she told Alex she would keep him apprised.

Not knowing what else to do, Alex sat for several minutes to take in what had just happened. When he was a child, he would ask his mother where his father had gone and his mother would tell him that his father was away on a business trip. But as weeks turned into months and years, Alex realized his father wasn't returning and he never asked his mother about it again because he didn't want to upset her.

Alex buried his feelings about his father and tried not to think about him. But there were times in his life when Alex felt sad that his father wasn't there for him, like when he graduated high school, when he graduated college, when he got married and when he had his first child. But during those times he didn't allow himself to dwell on those thoughts.

By the next day, Alex thought he might want to go visit his father before his father passed away, but then he received another call from his stepmother that his father died that night. She said she planned to have a memorial service in a few months and invited Alex to attend and meet his half brother, Jack.

A wave of profound sadness came over Alex. His wife attempted to soothe him, but Alex was too confused, anxious and angry to talk about it. He never even knew he had a half brother.

His wife said to him, "But you haven't seen your father in so many years and you don't even remember him. So, why do you feel sad?"

Alex couldn't explain why he felt so many mixed emotions, but after weeks passed and he didn't feel any better, he got help in therapy.

Grieving For a Parent Who Wasn't There For You

His therapist helped Alex explore his feelings and he realized that, even though he didn't allow himself to dwell on being abandoned by his father, he always had a wish that he and his father would reunite and they would develop a strong father-son relationship. But now that his father was dead, the reconciliation was impossible and this made him feel deeply sad.

His therapist helped Alex to grieve the abandonment and the loss of a relationship he wished for but now would never have. He also worked on his anger about his father asking him as he was dying to forgive him because, even though Alex said he forgave him, he wasn't sure how he felt.

As Alex continued to work on these issues in therapy, he realized how much he had stuffed his feelings from the time he was young because there was no one to help him with his complicated feelings about being abandoned and never seeing his father again. He believed his mother did the best she could, but she wasn't emotionally equipped to help him when he was a child.

After his father's death, when he spoke to his mother, he realized her memories of that time were different from his. She believed she had sat him down, talked to him and comforted him after his father left. When he told her what he remembered, she denied it, so Alex dropped the subject.

The memorial service was several months away and Alex had mixed feelings about going. Part of him wanted to go to meet his half brother and to find out more about his father, but another part of him didn't want to go. Even though he knew logically that none of this was his half brother's fault, he felt hurt and angry that his half brother had the relationship with his father that Alex wanted.

Then one day Alex received a call from his half brother, Jack, and they talked for over an hour. Jack said he could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Alex to get the call from Jack's mother after so many years. He also hoped they could meet and get to know each other.

Over time, they developed a relationship and Alex decided to go to the memorial service.

It took Alex a while to sort out his feelings about his father and his anger about the way his mother lied to him when his father left. But he also felt relieved to release the emotions in therapy--emotions he had suppressed for so many years.

Over time, Alex worked out his grief in therapy and maintained a relationship with Jack.

Getting Help in Therapy

Grieving for a deceased parent is difficult and it can be that much more difficult when a parent hasn't been there for you.

Getting Help in Therapy

Rather than trying to deal with these complicated emotions on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping clients with grief and loss.

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 am an experienced psychotherapist who has 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

Mourning the Death of a Father You Never Knew

Common Reactions to the Death of a Loved One 

The Many Layers of Grief 

The Emotional Impact of Losing Both Parents

Who Are You After Both of Your Parents Die?

Writing to Cope With Grief

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.

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.

It's Not Always About You: How to Stop Personalizing Rejection While Dating

In a prior article, How to Stop Jumping to Conclusions and Personalizing Other People's Behavior, I discussed how earlier trauma can get triggered if you personalize other people's behavior. Most of the time, especially at the point when you're triggered, you might not recognize that your emotions have more to do with the past than the current situation because triggers can feel so powerful and immediate (see my article: Coping With Emotional Triggers).

Dating: Their Rejection Might Not Be About You

With regard to getting rejected by someone you're dating, it's very easy to get triggered, especially if you have unresolved abandonment or loss issues (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection).

How to Stop Personalizing Rejection While Dating

To complicate matters, the person you were dating might not know how to communicate what they're going through, so you might feel left out in the cold as to why they don't want to see you anymore (see my article: 7 Reasons Why You Might Be Having a Hard Time Getting Over a Breakup).

But try to keep in mind that, unless that person tells you that you said or did something that offended them, they might not want to see you for reasons that have nothing to do with you, including:

• They haven't given themselves enough time to grieve their former relationship.
• They might like you, but they feel the two of you might not have enough in common.
• Having nothing to do with you, they might feel too insecure and anxious to date.
• They might feel overwhelmed by other things going on in their life and they don't have the time or emotional capacity to start a new relationship.
• They might have their own unresolved trauma that is affecting their ability to be open to dating you.

And so on.

Tips on How to Deal With Rejection While Dating

• Don't Take It Personally: Sure, it hurts when someone you like doesn't want to see you.  As previously mentioned, it can bring up a lot of your own insecurities, which might not have anything to do with the current situation.

• Recognize That You Might Be Making Up Negative Stories in Your Head: When you have had a little time to step back from your hurt feelings, recognize that you might be creating a narrative in your head that has nothing to do with the situation. For instance, if your immediate reaction is to have negative thoughts like, "They don't want to see me because I'm not attractive enough" or "They don't think I'm good enough," recognize that these are your thoughts that are probably getting projected onto the other person (see my article: Feelings Aren't Facts).

• Learn to Question the Validity of the Negative Stories You're Telling Yourself: When you're in a calmer state, ask yourself how likely is it that you were rejected because of the reasons you're telling yourself. If you have a problem being objective, talk to a trusted friend to get an impartial perspective.

• Be Respectful of the Other Person: Although it's tempting to lash out, it's better to summon your best self, tell the other person you accept their decision, and let them go.  If they don't offer an explanation, accept that you're not going to get closure with them.  Don't try to convince them to see you or badger them for an explanation if you don't get one.  Recognize that most people don't want to be in the position of rejecting anyone so be compassionate (see my article: Coping With a Breakup When Closure With Your Ex Isn't Possible).

• Get Emotional Support: It's normal and common to feel hurt and disappointed. Rather than trying to get emotional support from the person you were dating, seek help from trusted friends or family members (see my article: Overcoming Your Discomfort With Asking For Emotional Support).

• Get Professional Help From a Licensed Mental Health Professional: If the rejection brings up earlier unresolved trauma, seek help from a licensed trauma specialist to work through the trauma so these memories no longer get activated (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Fictionalized Clinical Vignette

The following vignette is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed, and it will illustrate how earlier trauma can get triggered by rejection and how therapy can help:

Tom

After dating Sally for two months, Tom got a call from her to cancel their upcoming date.  Since they had been out several times and he thought things were going well between them, Tom was surprised and disappointed.

Sally sounded nervous on the phone as she told him that she didn't see things progressing between them and she didn't think they should continue to see each other.  

She was somewhat vague about her decision. She only said she wasn't sure, but things just "didn't feel right" between them and it might be because she started dating again too soon after her breakup with her prior boyfriend of five years.  

Tom felt hurt and he asked Sally if there was anything he said or did that might have affected things between them.  In response, Sally said her decision didn't have anything to do with him--she just wasn't feeling like their relationship would develop into anything more serious.  She told him she was sorry if she was hurting his feelings, and then she said she needed to go.

After Tom got off the phone with Sally, in addition to feeling hurt and disappointed, he felt ashamed.  He was in his early 30s and he had never been in a serious relationship before.  He was hoping that things would get serious between him and Sally.  Before he got her call, he thought he saw the possibility of a committed relationship, but now his hopes were dashed.

He could feel that familiar sinking feeling coming over him and his thoughts turned negative pretty quickly, "Women just don't like me," "They don't find me attractive," and "They don't think I'm good enough for them."

Soon he was immersed in these negative thoughts, and by the time he saw his therapist the following day, he was feeling hopeless.  

"I just don't think I'll ever find someone who will want me." he told his therapist.

In response, his therapist reminded him that these were the distorted negative thoughts he often had when he felt rejected.  She also reminded him that these were old feelings stemming from his childhood relationship with parents who were too preoccupied to show him love or affection when he was growing up (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You Become Aware of Distorted Thinking).

Tom recognized that what his therapist said was true.  During that session, he was able to stand back to look at the situation from Sally's perspective and he realized that her rejection didn't have anything to do with him.

Until then, Tom had not wanted to do trauma therapy to work through his childhood trauma which often got triggered when he felt rejected.  But he told him therapist that he was finally ready to work through his unresolved trauma so he would no longer get triggered by them (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You Overcome Your Fear of Abandonment).

Conclusion

Now that most people are dating through dating apps, there's even more of a chance of getting rejected due to the sheer number of people on the apps and all the dating possibilities available to people.

Although your disappointment and hurt are real, the negative stories you're telling yourself might have nothing to do with why the other person rejected you. 

Take time to step back to get a better perspective. 

If talking to a friend doesn't help you because old wounds are getting triggered, seek professional help from a trauma therapist (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma that involves loss and feelings of abandonment, your unresolved trauma can make rejection much worse.

When you seek help in trauma therapy, you're taking steps to work through your traumatic history so you won't get triggered by it again.

Once you're free from your traumatic history, you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

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 during business hours or email me.

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships - Part 1

Most people would agree that being abandoned by a spouse or a romantic partner can be heartbreaking.  This is especially true when a partner leaves to be with someone else.  However, even in relationships where there is no objective threat, jealousy and mate guarding behavior can be the destructive element that drives a couple apart (see my article: Overcoming Jealousy).

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships

What is Mate Guarding?

Mate guarding occurs in both the animal kingdom and among humans.

Mate guarding can involve:

• keeping constant tabs on a partner
• checking that a partner is where s/he says she is
• going through a partner's phone or personal items to look for suspicious calls, texts or email, letters, hotel bills, etc.
• secretly listening into phone calls
• installing a tracking device in a partner's phone or car
• stalking/spying on a partner
• asking friends or other individuals to keep tabs on a partner
• questioning a partner about friendships, coworkers and other people
• constantly questioning a partner's motives about engaging in separate activities
• wanting a partner to give up certain social activities 

And so on.

The Effect of Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships

Irrational jealousy that turns into mate guarding can have a very toxic effect on a relationship.  The partner who is engaging in mate guarding can lose objectivity and become irrational and accusatory.

Most partners who are being unfairly accused of wrongdoing eventually become resentful.  In addition, the partner who is on the receiving end of mate guarding behavior often feels controlled and suffocated, which creates even greater problems.  

By being irrationally jealous, the partner who fears being abandoned can actually bring about the demise of the relationship if the partner gets fed up.  At the very least, it erodes the quality of the relationship.

When someone has a history of jealous mate guarding, s/he often has insecure attachment problems, specifically, anxious attachment.  See my articles:  

• What is Your Attachment Style?, 
• How Does Your Attachment Style Affect Your Relationship?
• How to Develop a Secure Attachment Style: What is Earned Secure Attachment?

In my next article, I'll provide a clinical example of irrational jealousy and mate guarding in a relationship.  See Part 2 of this topic.

Getting Help in Therapy

It can be difficult to step back from irrational jealousy on your own.  Triggers often occur so quickly that you don't have time to reflect on your irrational thoughts.

Even if you know objectively that your jealousy is irrational, you might feel very different on an emotional level.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you get to the root of your problems to help you change your behavior.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional so you can enjoy your relationship and live a more fulfilling life (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Your Fear of Abandonment).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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