Making Big Changes: The Role of the Unconscious and Why You Might Not Be Able to "Just Do It"

Making a major change in your life--even a change you really want--can be challenging.  Many self help books and motivational coaches urge people to "just do it!" as if you could just power through to automatically change.  Although this might be true sometimes, this is a superficial view of what it takes to overcome an emotional block you might encounter when you want to make a big change. What is often overlooked is the role of the unconscious mind in the change process (see my articles: Making the Unconscious Conscious and Experiential Therapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Making Big Changes: Why You Might Not Be Able to "Just Do It"

On the surface, it seems logical: You want to make a change in your life, so you make a decision to do it and it gets done. But we now know that most of mental processing occurs on an unconscious level. 

So, although you might think you can just push yourself to make a major change, your unconscious mind initiates the process or, as often happens, gets in the way of your making the change.

Clinical Vignette

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information removed, illustrates how the unconscious can get in the way of making a major change and how experiential therapy can help:

Alice

When Alice came to therapy, she was frustrated and confused about why she was procrastinating with starting a new project she really wanted to do, which involved a major change for her.

Alice told her therapist that there was no doubt in her mind that she wanted to take advantage of this new opportunity to write for a prestigious journal. She knew that being able to publish her scholarly articles would give her the professional exposure she wanted and open up new doors for her.  

And yet, she explained, whenever she thought about submitting her articles to the journal editors, she felt so much anxiety that she got a headache and upset stomach. She tried to reason with herself that there was nothing to cause her discomfort, but she still felt so anxious that she couldn't even sit at her computer.

This left Alice feeling confused and frustrated because she just couldn't understand what was holding her back.  She was also aware that if she procrastinated too long, the editors might withdraw their offer and she didn't want that to happen.  So, to buy herself some time, she negotiated a delay and the editors accommodated her, but she knew she couldn't delay indefinitely.

Prior to coming to therapy, Alice worked with a life coach to help her to get motivated.  The life coach gave Alice various exercises to do, including writing about her core values.  He encouraged her by telling her to remember her past successes, and he also advised her to do affirmations about her new goal. But nothing worked--she still felt sick whenever she thought of this new opportunity.

Not only was she unable to start, but she also felt like there was something seriously wrong with her because her inaction didn't make sense to her.  Her life coach advised Alice that whatever was creating the obstacle for her was beyond the scope of coaching, and he advised her to seek help in therapy so she could work on a deeper level.

Alice's therapist explained to her that, even though, on a conscious level, Alice wanted this opportunity, she was encountering an unconscious block that was getting in the way.  She also explained how they could uncover this block using Experiential Therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

Her therapist described the various types of Experiential Therapy, which use the mind-body connection, like EMDR therapy, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis,. She explained how these modalities uncover and overcome the emotional blocks that were getting in Alice's way (see my article: The Unconscious Mind and Experiential Therapy).

Over time, Alice's therapist helped Alice to get into a relaxed state so she could use a method called the Affect Bridge to go back to the earliest time when she felt this type of anxiety.  Her therapist explained the Affect Bridge could get to the root of what was triggering Alice's anxiety to uncover the problem.

During one of the sessions using the Affect Bridge, Alice recalled a memory she had not remembered in a long time:  When she was in high school, she came home from school feeling very excited because her English teacher said she wanted to recommend Alice to be a writer on the school newspaper.  Alice loved to write and she had always wanted to write for the paper. But when she told her mother about it, her mother frowned and told her, "Don't forget where we come from."  

Since Alice was a very obedient child and she knew her mother disapproved of her writing for the high school paper, she turned down the opportunity, which made her sad; however, she didn't want to make her mother unhappy.

Later on in that same therapy session, when her therapist was debriefing her, Alice explained that her parents immigrated from Eastern Europe just before Alice was born.  They had very little money when they came and they relied heavily on other family members, who were already in New York, to help them until Alice's father was able to get a job.  They often recalled their impoverished circumstances and the importance of family by saying, "Don't forget--always put family first."

Recalling that memory also prompted other memories where her mother disapproved of other opportunities that were presented to Alice.  Each time it was as if her mother believed that these opportunities would create a wedge between Alice and her.  

Even the thought of Alice going to college was fraught for her mother--until Alice's guidance counselor convinced her mother that Alice would have better job opportunities if she went to college.  This was something her mother understood because it involved work and survival, so she relented, but she wouldn't allow Alice to go away, so she had to go to a local college.

Recalling those memories caused Alice a lot of sadness and anger.  Even though she loved her family and she had been especially close to her mother, she wished she had been able to defy her mother to take advantage of these opportunities.  But, she explained, as a teenager, she didn't dare.  She was too afraid of standing up to her mother, and she believed it would break her mother's heart.

"But why is this affecting me now?" Alice asked her therapist, "I'm 45 years old, and both of my parents are long gone" (see my article:  Reacting to Your Present Circumstances Based on Your Traumatic Past).

As they continued to work together using Experiential Therapy, Alice realized that, even though her mother was no longer alive, her internal experience of her mother still had a powerful influence on her.  She realized that her mother didn't understand and she feared that if Alice took advantage of these opportunities, Alice would begin to move away from her family emotionally or physically.

Gradually, Alice also realized that, unconsciously, she was still trying to appease and reassure her mother that she was still loyal to her family.  Even though her parents had been dead for a number of years, this unconscious wish was still very much a part of her.

After Alice had this realization, she knew it was not only important to her career that she write for the journal--it was also important for her emotional development to stop operating under these longstanding unconscious thoughts. 

So, with some mixed feelings, she submitted her first article to the journal.  She also continued to work in therapy to grieve for what for the opportunities she missed in the past and to overcome some lingering guilt she felt about doing something she knew her mother would have felt threatened by if she were still alive.

Experiential Therapy Helps You to Overcome Emotional Blocks

Her therapist helped Alice to work through the earlier trauma using EMDR therapy, so Alice was able to let go of the remaining emotional blocks and work on her new project without guilt or hesitation.

Conclusion

The unconscious mind has a powerful role in your decision-making.  So when you encounter an obstacle in making a decision or moving forward with a plan, your unconscious mind is likely involved.

Sometimes there's an old unconscious emotional block, like "I'm not good enough" or "I'm unlovable," which is out of your awareness, which keeps you from making the changes you want (see my article: Overcoming the Internal Critic and Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Experiential therapy can help you to make the unconscious conscious, as illustrated in the vignette above, so you're free to live fully in the present without trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you've been struggling with a problem despite your best efforts to solve it, you could benefit from working with an experiential therapist.

Rather than struggling on your own, you can overcome the obstacles holding you back so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP 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 or email me.

Emotionally Intimate Relationships Provide An Opportunity to Know Yourself in New Ways

People who are in new relationships are understandably focused on getting to know their partner, but being in a relationship also provides you with an opportunity to get to know yourself better--sometimes in unexpected ways.

Emotionally Intimate Relationships Provide An Opportunity to Get to Know Yourself in a New Way

Although there is always the potential to get to know yourself in all relationships, including friendships and work-related relationships, being in an emotionally intimate relationship brings up core emotional issues that you often don't discover in other relationships.  This is because you're at your most emotionally vulnerable when you're in a relationship that is emotionally intimate.

Often, these core issues involve aspects of yourself that you haven't encountered before--even if you're been in other relationships--because every relationship is different.  Each dyad is unique and combines the personal histories of each person in a unique way.

Getting to know yourself in a relationship gives you a chance to see yourself in a new light in both ways you like and in ways you might want to change.

Fictional Clinical Vignette:  Emotionally Intimate Relationships Provide You With An Opportunity to Get to Know Yourself in New Ways
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how being in a relationship provides an opportunity to get to know new aspects of yourself and how psychotherapy can help:

Tod
After his divorce, Tod waited a year before he started dating.  He had been married for 15 years and, initially, he found the dating world to be daunting.  It was all new to him.  He lacked confidence in himself and he felt discouraged by online dating.  He often felt like he was "doing it wrong" when he met women online or he felt inadequate in some way.  But when he met Nicki through mutual friends, he felt he met someone who was special, and he stopped his online dating activity.

They were both divorced, in their mid-40s, and without children.  Not only did they have similar values and interests, but they both had demanding careers and were both looking to get into a serious relationship.  After dating for several months, they decided to take the next step and move in together.

After living together for a couple of months, Nicki began to express her frustration with Tod's unspoken expectation that she do all of the cooking and housework.

Hearing her complaints, Tod was surprised--mostly at himself--because he always saw himself as believing that men and women were equal in his personal relationships as well as in his work-related relationships.  As a managing director at work, he tended to mentor and promote qualified women, and he encouraged his managers to do so as well.  So hearing Nicki say she thought his behavior at home was sexist was something he hadn't thought about before.  But when he did think about it, he realized that she was right.

As Tod thought about it more, he realized that when he was married, his wife, who didn't work, did the housework, and she didn't mind.  This is what he was accustomed to for 15 years and it was never an issue for them.  He also grew up in a household where his mother stayed home and took care of all the household chores while his father was at work.

The problems that led to Tod's divorce had nothing to do with disagreements about household chores and more to do with their growing apart.  His wife at the time was a perfectionist about housework, and she preferred to do things herself, which suited both of them.

In the last few years of his marriage, Tod started psychotherapy to deal with the loss of his mother to a sudden illness.  While in therapy, Tod learned things about himself that he never realized before.  Getting to know aspects of himself that he never knew before helped Tod to grow and become more psychologically minded, but his wife didn't understand why he attended psychotherapy.  Even when it was obvious to both of them that they were drifting apart, his wife wouldn't even consider going to couples therapy, so the relationship eventually ended with each of them acknowledging the unhappiness in the marriage and opting for an amicable divorce.

Tod began discussing with his psychotherapist how surprised he was to realize that he was behaving in a traditional sexist way at home and even more surprised that he didn't realize it himself before Nicki mentioned it.  Although he agreed with Nicki once she pointed it out, he felt completely inept about doing housework because he had never done it before.  When he lived with his former college roommates after he graduated college, they hired a cleaning person to do the housework and, as previously mentioned, when he was married, his wife preferred to do the housework.

His psychotherapist sensed that there was something more going on for Tod beyond that he didn't like or feel good at doing housework, so she explored this issue with him further.

What eventually came up was that, beyond housework, Tod often felt "not good enough" when he tried anything new, including online dating before he and Nicki moved in together.  This included going away to college, which resulted in him attending counseling through the college counseling center when he was tempted to drop out of college during his freshman year.  It also included when he was new at work after college.

Fortunately, his college counselor helped him to get through that difficult first year so he stayed at college.  And he was assigned to a caring mentor at his company, who helped him make the transition from college to work when he was a new employee, and it also helped Tod to build up his self confidence in his career.

As Tod discussed this problem with his psychotherapist, he realized that new situations still triggered the feelings of not being good enough in many areas of his life, and he wanted to work through this issue since it was bound to come up again and again in his life.

To discover the underlying issues involved with Tod not feeling good enough, his psychotherapist used the current situation with Nicki and the clinical hypnosis technique called the Affect Bridge (see my article: What is Clinical Hypnosis?).

With the Affect Bridge, Tod was able to sense his emotions and where he felt them in his body with regard to his current problem and go back to the earliest time that he felt this way about himself to get to the root of the problem.

Once Tod and his psychotherapist were able to pinpoint the earliest experience where he felt inadequate, which was in his childhood, they used EMDR therapy to help him to resolve the past, present and anticipated future events that could trigger these feelings of inadequacy (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy?, How Does EMDR Therapy Work: EMDR and the Brain, and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

Along the way, Tod began taking over half of the household responsibilities that Nicki had been doing, which Nicki appreciated, and after doing EMDR therapy, he no longer felt inadequate with this  issue or other new situations.

Conclusion
Emotionally intimate relationships provide an opportunity for you to get to know yourself in new ways, including both positive and negative aspects of yourself.

When there are issues that are getting triggered in your relationship, these issues often have their roots in earlier experiences.

Experiential therapy, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis are effective forms of therapy that help you to overcome unresolved trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have been struggling with unresolved issues, you can get help in psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome the problems that are keeping you stuck so you can lead a more fulfilling life, so rather than struggling on your own, get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many people to overcome unresolved problems.

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.

Discovering and Giving Voice to Previously Disowned Parts of Yourself

One of the benefits of attending experiential psychotherapy is that you can discover and give voice to previously disowned parts of yourself (see my articles:  Ego States Work: Is There a Split Off Part of You Running Your Life?, Reclaiming a Lost Part of Yourself and Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are).

Discovering and Giving Voice to Previously Disowned Parts of Yourself

Unlike other forms of psychotherapy, experiential psychotherapy provides an opportunity to delve beyond secondary emotions to understand primary emotions, which are often disowned aspects of yourself (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy Alone to Overcome Trauma).

For example, underneath anger there are often other disowned emotions, like sadness, shame, fear of abandonment and so on (see my article: Anger as a Secondary Emotion).

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Discovering and Giving Voice to Previously Disowned Parts of Yourself
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how experiential psychotherapy provides an opportunity to discover and express a disowned aspects of a client in therapy:

Tania
When she began psychotherapy, Tania complained that her husband, who refused to come to couples therapy, was usually too preoccupied with his work to pay attention to her when they were at home together.

Tania told her psychotherapist that, although she complained to her husband that she felt neglected by him, she saw no change in his behavior.  After telling him several times that she didn't like when he came home and worked without consideration for her, she would lose her temper and yell at him.  Then, they would argue and end up being more estranged from each other than ever.

Her husband usually responded to her anger by shutting down and "stonewalling" her (see my article: Relationships: Are You a Stonewaller?).

This would lead to an escalation of Tania's anger where she tried in vain to get her husband to understand how angry it made her to feel ignored by him.

She explained to her psychotherapist that on the rare occasions when her husband responded to her anger, he told her that she was so unpleasant when she got angry that he didn't want to be around her, which only increased Tania's anger.  So, they were caught in this negative cycle, which was only getting worse.

Tania said that their relationship wasn't always like this.  In the early years of their courtship and marriage, her husband was considerate and attentive.  He wanted to spend time with her and he didn't put anything else ahead of their time together.

But once he started his own business a few years ago, all of that changed.  He worked day and night and even on weekends.  He said he was doing it for them, but she continued to feel neglected and unloved by her husband.

To make matters worse, Tania grew up in a home where she was emotionally neglected by parents who were preoccupied by their work.  Most of the time, her parents passed her off to her nanny and spent little time with her leaving Tania feeling unlovable (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect? and Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

She told her psychotherapist that one of the reasons why she fell in love with the man who eventually became her husband was that he was so attentive and nurturing, which made her feel that she was special to him--a feeling she had not experienced before meeting him.

Now, she felt taken for granted.  She felt that her husband would prefer to work and spend time on the phone with his customers rather than spend time with her.  And, no matter how much she complained to him about it, he wouldn't change.  In fact, she felt that things were getting worse between them.

Tania's psychotherapist sensed that there were underlying issues beneath Tania's anger.  She sensed that anger was a secondary emotion and that underneath the anger, Tania had primary emotions that she wasn't dealing with.

Once Tania and her psychotherapist established a good therapeutic alliance and Tania learned the necessary coping skills to do the work, her psychotherapist recommended that they do experiential therapy so they could explore her emotions.

Using a technique from clinical hypnosis called the Affect Bridge, Tania's psychotherapist asked Tania to remember a recent incident where she felt angry with her husband because she felt he was neglecting her.

Tania remembered an incident that occurred a few days before where she and her husband were at home at night, and she watched him go into his home office immediately after they ate dinner.

As she felt her blood boil, she tried not to confront her husband because they weren't getting along, but at a certain point she couldn't hold back anymore and she rushed into his office to complain to him.  Rather than respond, her husband paid no attention to her and kept working, which left her feeling even more angry.

Her psychotherapist asked Tania to sense where in her body she felt her anger now as she spoke about that evening.  Tania responded that she felt her chest tighten, her throat was constricted and she felt her shoulders were tight.

Then, her psychotherapist asked Tania to sense underneath her anger to see what else she might be feeling.  At first, Tania had a hard time getting beyond her anger, but she stuck with it and she eventually sensed her sadness, hurt and shame--the same way she felt when she was a child and her parents neglected her.

As Tania and her therapist continued to talk about this and Tania allowed herself to feel her underlying emotions, Tania was open to seeing the dynamics between her and her husband from her husband's point of view.  She realized that the more she angrily demanded that he pay attention to her, the more distant he became.

Tania's psychotherapist validated Tania's need to be loved and paid attention to by her husband.  She also began exploring with Tania how Tania might approach her husband to explain what she was feeling.

At first, Tania was hesitant to make herself so emotionally vulnerable.  She feared that if her husband ignored her after she opened up to him emotionally that she would be devastated, so Tania and her psychotherapist continued to explore her feelings and how she could change how she communicated with him.

Tania waited until she and her husband had a quiet evening when he wasn't working.  As she discussed with her therapist, rather than berate her husband, she decided to talk to him about how much she missed him.

To her surprise, her husband responded affectionately to her and told her that he also missed how close they used to be with each other.  He also apologized for not spending more time with her, and told her that he would make more of an effort not to bring work home with him so they could have more time together.

In addition, to Tania's amazement, her husband agreed to go to couples therapy to work on their marriage.

After they were in couples therapy for a while, her husband told her in session that during the times when she yelled at him, he felt so overwhelmed that he shut down emotionally.  Tania learned that when it appeared to her that her husband didn't care, he was actually feeling emotionally feeling "frozen" and "paralyzed" inside, especially since their arguments triggered earlier childhood issues for him (see my article: Coping With Trauma: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

When her husband learned that Tania's early childhood neglect was also getting triggered when she felt neglected by him, he was compassionate and understanding.  He told her that he wanted to work out their issues.

Tania continued to work with her individual psychotherapist to work on whatever came up for her in her marriage and in her couples therapy sessions.  Whenever Tania was tempted to disavow her deeper emotional feelings, her psychotherapist helped to express them and feel less vulnerable.

Gradually, as the dynamic between Tania and her husband improved and Tania felt less overwhelmed, Tania and her psychotherapist used EMDR therapy to work on the root of her problems--the early childhood emotional neglect (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

As Tania progressed in her EMDR therapy, she and her husband got along better because she got less triggered when he had to work at home.

Also, since Tania and her husband were able to talk more openly with each other and express their emotions without fear, Tania was more understanding when her husband had to work and she didn't feel neglected by him because they made it a point to spend quality time together.  She was learning to separate her traumatic past from the issues in her marriage (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma in Psychotherapy: Separating "Then" From "Now").

Conclusion
It's not unusual for people to have unconscious aspects of themselves that they have disavowed without being aware of it.

Experiential therapy, which allows clients in therapy to get to the underlying issues, provides an opportunity to discover and express those disavowed parts so that clients can feel more emotionally integrated.

Getting Help in Therapy
It's very difficult to discover disavowed aspects of yourself on your own (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Working with an experiential psychotherapist, you can work gradually and safely to understand and express the parts of yourself that are at the root of your problems (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I specialize in working with trauma.  I tend to work in an experiential way with integrative psychotherapy.

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.

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior: A Clinical Vignette

In my prior article, Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior, I discussed the importance of focusing on your inner world and how to tap into your unconscious mind in psychotherapy using experiential therapy such as EMDR therapy, clinical hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing.  In this article, I'll be providing a fictional clinical vignette to provide an example.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior

Sam
Sam began psychotherapy because he was having problems in his romantic relationships with women.

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior 

His last relationship ended in much the same way as his prior two relationships ended with his girlfriend, Jane, telling him that he was too jealous and possessive.  She was also hurt that he tended to be suspicious that she might be cheating on him when she never gave him a reason not to trust her.  After getting fed up with Sam questioning her about her whereabouts, she ended the relationship (see my article: Relationships: Overcoming Jealousy).

Sam told his psychotherapist that neither Jane nor his other girlfriends ever gave him a reason to doubt they were faithful to him, but he still had a hard time trusting women.  He had a very hard time controlling his suspicions, jealousy and possessiveness while he was in the relationship.

In hindsight, he would see that he was being irrational, but that insight never came until after the relationships ended.  Although he knew that there was no chance of repairing his relationship with Jane, he wanted to avoid behaving in this way in a future relationship.

When his psychotherapist asked Sam about his family history, Sam, who was in his mid-30s, revealed that he had only sketchy memories of his childhood.  His psychotherapist knew that this is often a sign that there was developmental trauma in childhood, but she wanted to wait until she knew more about Sam before she speculated about this.

He revealed that was the youngest of three children who grew up in New York City.  When he was in his 20s, his oldest sister, Anna, told him that their mother left the family household for several months when Sam was five and that he had a very hard time while she was away, but he had no memory of this.

Sam said that, according to Anna, their mother just disappeared one day while they were in school.  Anna told Sam that their mother had not left a note or phoned to say where she was or when she would be coming back, which worried everyone.

Anna told Sam that he was inconsolable after their mother left and he refused to go to school, but Sam had no memory of this.  He was aware that his mother eventually returned and his parents were still together, but this is all that he knew.

Sam talked about having chronic insomnia for as long as he could remember. He had problems both falling and staying asleep.  He also described problems with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), tension headaches and backaches.  He said his doctor gave him medication for IBS, which sometimes worked and sometimes did not.  His doctor also told him that his medical problems were probably psychologically related and recommended that Sam attend psychotherapy.

His psychotherapist, who was a trauma-informed therapist, also knew about the connection between various medical issues and developmental trauma, so she noted this information in Sam's therapy file and kept it in her mind.

She provided Sam with psychoeducation about psychological trauma and how unresolved childhood trauma, even trauma that people cannot remember from their childhood, can affect them later physically and psychologically as adults (see my article: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation About How Psychotherapy Works).

Then, his psychotherapist prepared Sam to work on his issues by explaining that there would be a preparation phase to their work where she would teach him to how to de-escalate his anxiety and to use self care exercises at bedtime to deal with his insomnia and to anything anxiety-producing at the end or between psychotherapy sessions (see my article: Trauma Therapy: Using Grounding Exercises Between Psychotherapy Sessions and Trauma Therapy: Using the Container Exercise Between Therapy Sessions).

After Sam began meditating, doing breathing exercises and practicing grounding and the container exercises, which helped him to calm himself and to sleep better, his psychotherapist talked to him about the Affect Bridge in clinical hypnosis and how it could help them to understand the root of his problems.  She explained that Sam would be in a safe and relaxed state while they were doing the affect bridge, and she asked him to go back to one of his memories where he was suspicious of Jane.

Sam remembered that there was an evening when Jane was late coming home from work and he was worried about her.  He tried to reach her on her cellphone, but the call went directly to her voicemail.  He said that's when he began to get anxious and suspicious that she might be with another man.

At first while he was waiting for Jane to come home, he tried to rationalize that he had no reason to believe that she was cheating on him, but his anxiety got the best of him and it just continued to escalate.

By the time Jane came home to the apartment that they were sharing, he was in a terrible state.  He went into a rant and accused her of being with another man.

Jane had been through his rants before, so she waited for him to calm down.  Then, she told him that she was stuck between stations on the subway and she had no way to make or receive calls or texts.  She got on the computer and showed him the MTA website that indicated that there were significant delays on the train line that she used.

Then, Jane had a serious talk with Sam and told him that she couldn't deal with his suspicious nature anymore and she wanted to leave the relationship. Within a week, Jane was gone.  Sam felt devastated.

His psychotherapist explained that the anxiety that he had was related to separation anxiety, and she explained this form of anxiety to him (see my article: Overcoming Separation Anxiety).

Sam's psychotherapist asked him to go back to when he felt anxious when he couldn't reach Jane and describe what he felt and where he felt it in his body now as he recalled the memory, assuming this was tolerable for him.  Sam said it was tolerable.  He described the rising state of his anxiety and the related pain in his stomach.  He also felt angry and sad.

His psychotherapist asked Sam to stay with the emotions that he was feeling and to go back to his earliest memory of feeling this same way.

In response, Sam took a couple of minutes to focus on the emotions and the pain in his stomach.  His  mind took him back to a memory of coming home from school when he was five and looking for his mother in their  family apartment.  He looked all over the apartment and couldn't find her.  After a few minutes, he felt terrified that something happened to his mother.

Alone and afraid, he called his father at work in tears.  His father came home immediately and looked around the apartment to see if he could find a note from Sam's mother.  Finding no note, he called his in-laws to find out if she was there, but they said they had not heard from her.  Sam remembered that he was inconsolable all that night, and his father stayed with him until Sam fell asleep.

When Sam opened his eyes in his psychotherapist's office, he said that he was surprised because, until they did the Affect Bridge, he had no memory of that day.

Over the next several weeks, Sam and his psychotherapist continued to work on the early childhood memory of his mother leaving the family.  He recalled that a week or so after his mother left, he overheard his father telling his oldest sister that he heard from Sam's mother and she told the father  that she left the family to be with another man.

Over time, Sam began to remember many more memories related to his childhood.  He was also able to connect his irrational feelings of jealousy and suspicion in his relationships to his childhood memory of his mother leaving the family for another man.  Once he understood the connection, his jealousy and anxiety in his relationships made sense to him.  He realized that the unresolved trauma was still getting played out in his adult life (see my article: Developmental Trauma: Living in the Present As If It Were the Past and Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma That Happened a Long Time Ago).

His psychotherapist explained to Sam that understanding the root of his problem was the first step, but understanding it alone would not be enough to overcome his problem when he got emotionally triggered in a future relationship (see my article: Coping With Trauma: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

She recommended that they use EMDR therapy to help Sam overcome the original trauma triggered his separation and abandonment anxiety(see my article: EMDR Therapy: Overcoming Childhood Trauma So You Can Have Healthier Adult Relationships and How Psychotherapy Can Help to Overcome Fear of Abandonment).

Gradually, over time, Sam and his psychotherapist used EMDR therapy and discovered that there were other similar memories of feeling abandoned that contributed to his current psychological and physical problems (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Childhood Trauma).

Eventually, Sam was able to work through his traumatic memories in EMDR therapy.  By the time he got into a new relationship, he no longer got emotionally triggered.

Conclusion
Many clients come to therapy because they don't understand why they are having problems.  Often, they are not aware of how unresolved childhood trauma affects them psychologically and physically as an adult.

Experiential therapy, like clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy, can help clients to focus on their inner world to understand how the past, even the past that is not conscious to them, affects them now.  Experiential therapy can also help clients to overcome traumatic experiences.

Getting Help in Therapy
Working with a skilled mental health professional in therapy provides an opportunity to get to the root of your problems and work through unresolved trauma (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Once you have worked through unresolved trauma, you can live a more fulfilling life free of your traumatic history.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get the help you need in therapy from an experienced psychotherapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and one of my specialties is helping clients 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.

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior

As I've mentioned in prior articles, people's behavior is often based on unconscious thoughts and feelings, so that if you want to understand yourself, a good place to start is with your unconscious mind.   Psychotherapy provides an opportunity to understand your unconscious mind and how it affects your behavior (see my articles:  Psychotherapy: Making the Unconscious Conscious, Your Unconscious Beliefs Affect Your Sense of Reality, How Psychotherapy Helps You to Expand Your Inner Awareness, and Focusing on Your Inner Self is More Effective to Overcome Shame Than Focusing on Your Outer Self).

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior

Some people are naturally more introspective than others.  They take the time to try to understand their unconscious mind in psychotherapy by working with their psychotherapist to become aware of their underlying thoughts, feelings and dreams and how it affects their behavior.

Other people, who are naturally more outer directed, but who also want to understand the underlying issues that affect their behavior, learn in therapy how to discover the unconscious motivation for their behavior.

A skilled psychotherapist, who works with unconscious thoughts, feelings and dreams, can help clients to develop the ability to pay attention to their inner, unconscious world to understand themselves.

When you're aware of what's going on in your unconscious mind, your behavior begins to make sense.  Whereas you might not understand your behavior before you understand the underlying issues, when you've developed the ability to understand your inner world, you begin to understand that there are coherent reasons for your behavior that you weren't able to detect before.

How to Tap Into Your Unconscious Mind

Working With Dreams:

There are many ways to tap into the unconscious mind, depending upon the experience and skills of the psychotherapist.

The most traditional way is to pay attention to your dreams (see my article: Are You Fascinated By Your Dreams?).

By keeping a pad and pen near your bed before you go to sleep, you give your unconscious mind the message that you want to remember your dreams.  

In any given night, most people have 5-6 dreams.  The ones that are easiest to remember are the ones that are closest to your waking up.  

If you want to remember your dreams, upon waking up, rather than jumping out of bed or even shifting your position, remain still for a couple of minutes (shifting your position in bed makes it more likely that the dream will elude you).  

You might start by having a sense that you have had a dream.  For instance, you might still be immersed in the mood of the dream.  Or, you might remember an image or phrase from your dream.  By being patient and waiting a minute or two, the rest of the dream might unfold, usually in reverse order.

Remembering your dreams is a skill, and much like any skill, it can take time to develop.  People who are patient and take the time often remember a few dreams each morning, especially when they are in the process of writing down the dream that was closest to their waking state.  

Just like you might remember the last part of your last dream first, you will usually remember the last dream and then the one before that and the one before that in reverse order.

There are many ways to work with dreams in psychotherapy depending upon how your psychotherapist works.  

Some psychotherapists look for images or symbols in dreams that are prominent to discover the underlying meaning of the dream.

Other psychotherapists believe that every image in the dream represents a part of the client and helps clients to understand their dreams by assisting them to discover what parts of themselves are represented in the dream.

Many psychotherapists focus on the emotion on the dream:  Was the client feeling sad, happy, scared, angry, and so on, to help the client to understand the unconscious material in the dream?

Other psychotherapists work with Embodied Imagination, developed by Neo-Jungian psychoanalyst, Robert Bosnak, to work with dreams (see my article: Dreams and Embodied Imagination and Dream Incubation: Planting Seeds).

When clients are interested in working on their dreams to understand their underlying issues related to their problems, I use all of these ways of working with dreams depending upon what works best for the particular client.  Some clients have more of an affinity for working one way than another.

Working With the Mind-Body Connection

Since the body offers a window into the unconscious mind, I also use mind-body oriented psychotherapy, like clinical hypnosis, EMDR therapy, and Somatic Experiencing, to help clients to discover underlying issues (see my article: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

In clinical hypnosis, there is a technique called the Affect Bridge, which helps clients to get to unconscious issues by asking clients to use their emotions and where they feel these emotions in the body to allow unconscious material to come to the surface.

I have found the Affect Bridge to be a very good technique that often gets to unconscious thoughts, feelings and memories related to clients' problems.

Somatic Experiencing works in a similar way.  Clients learn to pay attention to their thoughts, feelings, body sensations, images or anything else that comes up for them as we are working on a problem.  

Part of EMDR Therapy, which was originally developed to help clients to overcome psychological trauma, is also now used for many other issues. For instance, EMDR therapy is also used for performance enhancement for executive, artists, performers, writers, athletes and anyone that needs help with performance enhancement.  There is a component of the EMDR therapy protocol that involves a free associative process where clients can access associative memories and unconscious thoughts and feelings.

EMDR therapy is also used adjunctively when your primary psychotherapist does not do EMDR and you see an adjunctive EMDR therapist (see my article: What is Adjunctive EMDR Therapy?).

Conclusion

Your inner world is a rich source of information that can help you to understand your behavior.

There are many ways to tap into your unconscious mind, including dreams and mind-body oriented types of therapy, such as clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy.

In my next article, I'll provide a clinical vignette to demonstrate how focusing on your inner world can help you to understand how your unconscious mind affects your behavior (see my article: Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior: A Clinical Vignette).

Getting Help in Therapy

Without understanding your internal world, you're bound to continue to have the same problems because the root of your problem lies in the unconscious mind.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to delve beneath the surface to understand the underlying issues involved so that you can get to the root of your problems and take action to change your behavior (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If you have been struggling unsuccessfully on your own to resolve your problems, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

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.

Making a Change Requires Taking Action: Psychotherapy Can Help When You Feel Stuck

Developing insight into your problems is a necessary part of psychotherapy.  But if you want to make changes in your life, you also need to take action.  In most cases, insight alone isn't enough to bring about lasting change (see my article:  Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Therapy is "All Talk and No Action" and Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Going to Therapy Means You're Weak).

Making a Change Requires Taking Action: Psychotherapy Can Help

Making a Change Can Be Challenging
There's no doubt that making a change can be difficult, especially if it's a significant change from what you've always done in the past.

People usually experience some ambivalence, even for changes that they really want to make, and this ambivalence can play out in your psychotherapy (see my article: Starting Psychotherapy: It's Not Unusual to Feel Anxious or Ambivalent).

Making a Commitment and a Plan to Change Usually Helps
Having a strong commitment to change can be helpful to overcome your ambivalence.

As opposed to having some vague idea of what to accomplish, having a plan can help you to start taking steps.  This plan doesn't have to be carved in stone.  It can be flexible enough to change with your developing sense of self, what you want, and your circumstances.  But you want to have the sense of moving forward rather than stagnating.

Overcoming Unconscious Saboteurs Within You
Progress, especially personal progress, is rarely linear.  Usually, along the way, you take two steps forward and one step backwards.

When you're ambivalent, it can be very helpful to give each part of yourself that has different feelings a "voice" to express the ambivalence--whether you do this with your psychotherapist using Ego States therapy or you do it on your own at home by writing (see my article: Having a Dialogue in Writing With the Different Parts of Yourself).

There might be unconscious parts of yourself that are sabotaging your progress.  For instance, there might be a part of you that feels, "You don't deserve to change" or "You don't deserve to have anything good in your life."

These unconscious parts can act as internal saboteurs and get in your way.

Once you've discovered the part or parts of yourself that are holding you back, you can address those parts to find out why they're afraid of making the change.  Then, you can find out from them what they need to feel reassured--whether it involves taking small incremental steps to accomplish your goals or taking care of that part of you, which might be traumatized, in therapy.

This is obviously easier if you're in therapy with a psychotherapist who does Ego States therapy,  some form of parts work therapy or a technique called the Affect Bridge in clinical hypnosis.

Until that unconscious part of you is discovered and addressed, you might keep looping around your goal without understanding what's getting in your way.

Who or What is Holding You Back From Making Changes?  
Aside from your ambivalence or unconscious internal saboteurs, another problem that could be holding you back is if you're working with a psychotherapist who believes that making a change, any kind of change, takes a very long time (see my article: Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Therapy Takes a Long Time).

I've heard this idea again and again from many psychotherapists, especially psychotherapists who tend to work in an outmoded way, spend their time among other psychotherapists who have the same traditional beliefs, and who haven't updated their skills.

This is how they were trained a long time ago, and this is what they continue to believe despite the many changes that have been made in the mental health field (see my article: A Psychotherapist's Beliefs About Psychotherapy Affect How Your Psychotherapist Works With You).

While it's certainly true that change is a process and some changes can take a long time, when a psychotherapist believes that all changes take a very long time, that's how this psychotherapist will approach your problems.  Then, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

In some cases, it might be true that it's too soon, especially if the client is emotionally fragile and wants to take action that would be emotionally harmful to him or her.  In those cases, the psychotherapist is being a responsible mental health professional.

If you're honest with yourself, you can determine whether you're holding yourself back or if you're in a therapy where you're being held back.  If it's the former, as I mentioned before, it's important to discover what's going on in your inner world that's holding you back whether you do this on your own or with your psychotherapist.  If it's the latter, you might need to find a new psychotherapist, especially if you've been going around in circles for a long time.

Sometimes, it's a combination of the former and the latter--there's an unconscious collusion between the client and the psychotherapist where both of them are unaware that they're getting in the way of the client making changes.

Getting Help in Therapy
When you go for a consultation with a psychotherapist, ask the therapist what his or her philosophy is about psychotherapy and change.

This is not about asking "How long will it take for me to change?" because no one can predict that.  Rather, it's about asking the therapist about his or her general philosophy about therapy and making changes (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If you've been trying unsuccessfully on your own to make changes in your life, you could benefit from working with a contemporary psychotherapist who works in a dynamic, interactive way, as opposed to a psychotherapist who believes that all change takes a very long time (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

By being proactive with regard to finding the psychotherapist who is right for you and making the changes that you want to make, you can make greater progress in your therapy and in your life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples in a contemporary and dynamic interactive way.

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.

Boredom as a Secondary Emotion: Discovering the Underlying Emotions in Therapy

In my prior article, Understanding the Different Types of Boredom,  I discussed the different types of boredom and how being aware of the type of boredom you're experiencing can lead to your taking action to address your needs.  In this article, I'm focusing on boredom as a secondary emotion that masks deeper unconscious feelings.

Boredom as a Secondary Emotion: Discovering the Underlying Emotions in Therapy

Boredom as a Secondary Emotion
Regardless of the type of boredom someone might be experiencing, when a client comes to my private practice in New York City and tells me that he's bored, I know that boredom often masks other underlying emotions like anger, sadness or fear.

In other words, boredom can be used unconsciously to defend against feeling these other emotions that are more difficult for most people.

The Mind-Body Connection in Psychotherapy
Often, talking about boredom in therapy goes nowhere.  But using the concept of the mind-body connection in psychotherapy often leads to discovering unconscious feelings (see my article:  The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Clinical Hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR Therapy are three types of mind-body oriented treatment modalities that can help to discover the unconscious roots to emotional problems.

A Fictional Vignette to Discover the Unconscious Roots of Boredom
Let's take a look at a fictional vignette which illustrates how the mind-body connection works:

Sam
Sam started therapy because he felt bored and stuck in a rut at work, and he didn't know what to do about it (see my articles: Getting Out of a Rut - Part 1 and Getting Out of a Rut - Part 2).

Sam had been in therapy before, but he wanted to try something different, so he chose a psychotherapist who focused on the mind-body connection because he thought it would help him to go deeper than he had in his prior talk therapy.

As he described his boredom with his job, his psychotherapist explained that there are different kinds of boredom and it seemed that the particular type of boredom that he was experiencing was reactive boredom where he wanted to escape from his responsibilities, but he didn't know what to do.

In subsequent therapy sessions, his therapist spoke to Sam about boredom being a secondary emotion that often masks other unconscious feelings.

She also spoke to him about using a technique in clinical hypnosis called the affect bridge  to help him to get to the underlying emotions.  She explained that he would be in a relaxed state where she would help him to focus on the boredom, where he felt it in his body, and they would see what else came up in terms of underlying emotions and possible memories.

By the time Sam and his therapist spoke about the affect bridge as part of hypnosis, he already felt comfortable with her and the way she worked, so he agreed to try it.

His therapist started by helping Sam to get grounded and to relax.  Then, she asked him to notice where he sensed the boredom in body.  Sam thought for a few moments, and then he responded by saying he felt the boredom in his upper stomach.  He experienced it as agitation.

His therapist encouraged Sam to continue to feel into the boredom, including the agitation, in his upper stomach.  After a couple of minutes, Sam said that he was aware of a rising sense of anger.

A few minutes later, he remembered a conversation he had with his parents when he was in his early teens.  At the time, he was angry with them because they would often go out and leave him in charge of his three younger siblings.

He said that his anger made no difference to his parents, who continued to force him to babysit for his younger siblings even after Sam complained that he was missing out on social activities with his friends because he was often busy taking care of his siblings.

Suddenly, Sam realized that he had similar feelings towards his boss and his subordinates at work.  He never wanted to supervise employees, but his promotion, which included new responsibilities that he really liked, also included supervising three employees who were difficult.

Sam told his therapist that he often felt that he could be spending more time doing the parts of his job that he really liked if he didn't have to spend so much time "babysitting" for these subordinates, who were often late or didn't come to work.

Instead of spending more time on the projects that he enjoyed, he had to spend time having individual conferences with his subordinates and even more time writing them up.

Over time, Sam realized that, before he did the affect bridge work with his therapist, he was unaware of feeling angry and how his anger about his work connected to his earlier family experiences.

Although both situations felt similar to him, Sam realized that there was an important difference--whereas when he was a teenager he had no choice but to watch his siblings whenever his parents told him to, as an adult, he could speak to his boss about how unhappy he was with the supervisory aspects of his job.

Sam knew that he probably wouldn't have been able to get to the deeper feelings underneath his boredom as quickly if he and his therapist had not used a mind-body oriented approach.

Boredom as a Secondary Emotion: Discovering the Underlying Emotions in Therapy

A few weeks later, Sam met with his boss and asked him if they could restructure his job so he no longer had to supervise employees.  His boss listened attentively.  Then he told Sam that he was thinking of restructuring Sam's job because the company needed him to do more of the creative work.  He said he would reassign Sam's subordinates to two other supervisors.

In his therapy sessions Sam and his psychotherapist worked on the older issue related to his anger towards his parents using EMDR therapy, a therapy developed specifically for resolving traumatic experiences.

Conclusion
Boredom often masks unconscious feelings, such as anger, sadness and fear.

It's often difficult to get to the unconscious feelings that lie beneath boredom with talk therapy.  But using a mind-body oriented therapy, like clinical hypnosis, EMDR or Somatic Experiencing helps to get to the unconscious material so that it can be worked through.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you tend to experience boredom, you could benefit from thinking of boredom as being a secondary emotion that hides unconscious feelings (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

An experienced psychotherapist, who uses a mind-body oriented approach in therapy, can help you to discover the unconscious feelings that are being masked by the boredom so you can get to the root of the problem and work through it in therapy (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I have helped many clients to discover the unconscious feelings that are at the root of their problems.

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.

Integrative Psychotherapy: Discovering the Root of Self Abandonment

In prior articles, I've discussed fear of abandonment where it involves a fear of being abandoned by other people.

See my articles: 

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Your Fear of Abandonment 

The Connection Between Abandonment Issues and Codependency

Fear of Abandonment: Leaving Your Relationship Because You're Afraid of Being Abandoned).  

There is also another common issue around abandonment that involves always being the "giver" to the point where it's hurtful to oneself, which is a self abandonment, the focus of this article.

Integrative Psychotherapy: Discovering the Root of Self Abandonment 

Self Abandonment: Always Being the Giver to the Person Who is Always the Taker
Many people, who focus on others more than they focus on themselves, tend to be givers to people where there is little to no reciprocity in their relationship.  As a result, the people who are givers are always giving and the people who are receiving are always taking.  This is a typical codependent relationship  (see my article: Overcoming Codependency).

While others, who are outside of this situation, might see the imbalance in this type of relationship, the person who is the giver rarely, if ever, notices the problem.  They're so focused on giving that they emotionally abandon themselves on behalf of others, especially others who are all too willing to take advantage of them.

The following fictional vignette illustrates this dynamic:

Tania
Tania began therapy after a tumultuous breakup with her last boyfriend.

She and Ray were dating on and off for four years.  During that time, Tania lost several friends, who didn't like Ray and who were constantly telling Tania to leave him.  They were tired of hearing Tania complain about the on again off-again relationship with Ray.

The breakup occurred after Ray lost his job again, and Tania couldn't afford to give him any more money.

Prior to that, Tania had given Ray thousands of dollars over the years every time he was terminated from a job, and he never paid her back.  But she was unable to help him this time because it would have meant she couldn't pay her own bills.

She explained to her psychotherapist that Ray interpreted this as Tania not caring about him, and he ended their relationship and refused to talk to Tania, which upset her.

Tania told her therapist that she would have given Ray the money if she could have afforded it, but she just couldn't do it.  She felt hurt and sad that Ray thought she didn't care.

As Tania and her therapist talked about Tania's history of relationships, it became evident that Tania had a similar pattern in all of her past relationships.  She would give and give until until she couldn't give anymore, then her boyfriend at the time would leave her (see my article: Unhealthy Relationships: Bad Luck or Poor Choices?).

Despite her friends trying to tell Tania that Ray and the other boyfriends were taking advantage of her, Tania didn't see it when she first started therapy.  She felt that her friends didn't understand the men that she dated and why she sacrificed so much for each of them (see my article: Could It Be That Your Friends See Things About Your Lover That You Don't See?).

When she was describing her family history to her psychotherapist, she said she was raised in a religious household where the emphasis was on putting others first.  She felt that she was practicing the beliefs that she was raised with, but her parents and siblings didn't agree.  They felt she was carrying it too far because she wasn't taking care of herself.

Tania's psychotherapist practiced Integrative Psychotherapy, which included an integration of psychodynamic therapy and other forms of therapy, including EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing, clinical hypnosis, and Ego States work, also known as Parts work (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

Her therapist recommended that she and Tania explore the part of her that tended to give so much to others--to the point of hurting herself--and to expect little to nothing in return.

In doing Ego States therapy, Tania was able to sense the part of her that felt she had to give to others even when it had a negative impact on her.  While she was in a relaxed state, Tania went back to a memory with Ray where she gave him her last $2,000 so that she had little money for herself.  She had so little that she had to cut back on seeing her friends until she got paid later in the month.

When she was back in that memory, Tania remembered feeling she must help Ray, even though it came as a big sacrifice to her.

As she got back into that self state, she remembered having a moment of doubt before she gave she gave Ray the money but, at the time, she quickly brushed that feeling aside because it made her feel guilty.  Rather than brushing that feeling aside during the therapy session, her therapist asked her to stay with it and see what else came up.

As Tania held together both feelings--the feeling that she must give the money to Ray and the feeling of doubt that she had--Tania felt the inner conflict, which was mildly uncomfortable for her.  But she was able to tolerate the inner conflict while she was with her therapist, so she stayed with it and gave that doubting part of voice, "If that part could speak, it would say, 'Don't give him the money.  He always loses his job and you bail him out even when bailing him out hurts you'" (see my article: Shifting Self States).

Immediately after allowing this doubting part to express itself, Tania told her therapist that she felt guilty for feeling this way, "This is what my family and friends were saying."

It was clear to Tania and her psychotherapist that this doubting part was small in terms of the influence that it had on her and especially in comparison to the part of her that felt compelled to give.

But after she expressed the doubts that made her feel so guilty, she was surprised that she also felt more relaxed.  She realized that this conflict between these two parts of herself were going on inside for a long time, but she never allowed herself to feel the doubting part for long.

Over time, as Tania and her psychotherapist continued to do Ego States work, Tania discovered other parts of her that were angry and sad.

The sad part of her contained feelings that she wasn't allowing herself to feel before she started therapy--sadness for herself that she gave so much and got so little in return.  The angry part, which she also suppressed until now, was angry with Ray and her prior boyfriends for not appreciating her more.

She also discovered another part of her that was very young and felt unlovable (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

The part that felt unlovable was at the root of her need to always give to her boyfriends.  That part felt that since she was unlovable, she had to keep giving so that these men would love her.  But she realized that it never worked out that way.

Not only did her boyfriends not appreciate her, but when she had no more to give, they left her.  So, she experienced self abandonment as well as abandonment by them.

Tania worked hard in therapy to distinguish these conflicted inner states and to separate the parts of herself from her religion.  She even spoke with her minister about her pattern of giving so much to her boyfriends and getting little to nothing in return.  He told her that Ray and the others took advantage of her and she needed to take care of herself first.

Over time, Tania was able to see that, before these men ever left her, she abandoned herself because she felt so unlovable and unworthy, so she and her therapist used a technique in clinical hypnosis called the Affect Bridge to trace back when she started to feel this way.

Once they discovered the earliest memory of Tania feeling unlovable, which was part of her childhood, they were able to use EMDR therapy to work through the trauma related to unresolved childhood issues.

Conclusion
With regard to abandonment issues, most of the focus in psychotherapy tends to be on how clients feel abandoned by others.

But many clients also abandon themselves when they become overly giving with people who take advantage of them.  Each client has his or her own underlying reasons as to why they continue to engage in this dynamic.

Integrative psychotherapy, which includes a combination of different types of therapy depending upon the needs of the client, is often effective in getting to the root of these problems so they can be worked on and resolved.

In the fictional vignette above, the therapy began with psychodynamic therapy (essentially talk therapy) and then the psychotherapist used Ego States therapy to help the client to understand the various parts of herself involved in this self defeating dynamic.

In this vignette, initially, the client was much more aware of the part of herself that felt compelled to keep giving to boyfriends, even when they were unappreciative.

As Tania and her therapist were able to distinguish other parts of herself that she had suppressed in the past, she discovered a sad part and an angry part that were in conflict with the giving part.

The Affect Bridge, a technique in clinical hypnosis, allowed the client to trace back the earliest memory related to the over-giving part which felt unworthy and unlovable.  As a result, they discovered the root of the problem.

Using EMDR therapy, they were able to process this earlier developmental trauma so that it no longer affected Tania.

Although this work is summarized briefly of necessity since this is a blog article, the therapeutic work involved is neither quick nor easy since it usually involves many layers of history.  But it tends to be faster and more effective than just talk therapy alone.

Getting Help With Integrative Psychotherapy
Integrative psychotherapy gives the psychotherapist and the client much more flexibility to use different types of therapy to get to the root of the problem and resolve it.

Using psychodynamic or talk therapy alone could take years to get to the root of this type of problem, which is a common problem for many people.

If the dynamics in this article resonate for you, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who practices Integrative Psychotherapy.

Rather than continuing to engage in self defeating patterns, you could work through these issues in Integrative Psychotherapy and free yourself from your traumatic history (see my articles: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who uses Integrative Psychotherapy in a collaborate way with each client to develop the most effective psychotherapy plan.

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.