How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

Does it seem like your perception of yourself is off?  Does it seem that logically, you know your sense of self should be higher but, on an emotional level, you're not feeling it?  This is a problem that many people experience.  In this article, I'm focusing on how psychotherapy can help you to overcome the disconnect between what you know and how you feel about yourself (see my article: How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

How Self Perception Develops
Your self perception develops in early infancy and it's based on interactions between you and your primary caregiver (a mother, in most cases).

An infant looks at his mother's face to discover who he is.  If the mother is attuned to the baby most of the time, the baby forms a positive perception of himself.  But if the mother is distracted, depressed or angry most of the time, the baby will often form a negative perception of himself, unless there are other adults who interact positively with the baby enough to offset the negative effects from the mother.

How Early Experiences Affect Self Perception As An Adult
Throughout life people continue to scan other people's faces to discover how these people are reacting towards them.  As children develop into adults, they have a greater ability to develop their own sense of self that is separate from how others perceive them.

But if there was significant early childhood neglect or abuse, it can be challenging to have a positive self perception.  Even when a person might know, on an intellectual level, that she is a "good person" who is kind, honest, intelligent and empathetic towards others, she might not feel it.  The disconnect between what a person knows objectively and what she feels can be disturbing.

The problem is that, as an infant, this person internalized a negative sense of self from the primary caregiver.  Adults have defense mechanisms that can serve to protect them against these negative reactions, but infants don't have strong defense mechanisms.  If something in their environment is bothering them, they can't fight or flee.  If protesting by crying doesn't work, their only recourse is to dissociate.

Later on, as an adult, it can be confusing when someone can't understand the difference in what he thinks vs. what he feels.  He might not know that, when he was an infant, his mother was too depressed, anxious, neglectful or abusive to reflect back love and nurturance to him.

Under these circumstances, it usually doesn't matter how many people might praise him as an adult.  He will probably still feel like he is "not good enough" or "unlovable" (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Fictional Clinical Vignette
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how psychotherapy can help a client to overcome traumatic early experiences so he can develop a more accurate self perception:

Ed
From the time Ed was a young child, he had a poor sense of self.  No matter how many "A's" he got in school, no matter how much his teachers and others praised him, Ed felt unworthy.

Ed's poor sense of self interfered with his making friends and socializing with others.  Fortunately, throughout his life other people saw positive qualities in Ed, liked him, and gravitated towards him.  But Ed had difficulty feeling like a worthwhile individual--no matter how many people befriended him or what he accomplished in his life.

When Ed was in his mid-30s, he won a prestigious award in his field and he attended an awards ceremony where he was honored.  As he listened to the speakers praise him, he was grateful for their kind words, but he felt empty inside because, despite the award and the recognition, he had a poor sense of self.

During the award ceremony, Ed felt an urge to flee.  He knew objectively that he worked hard and his achievements merited the award, but he still felt like a fraud and an impostor, which confused him.

He also felt ashamed because he felt that if the people who were honoring him knew him deep down, they wouldn't think he was a worthy person (see my article: Overcoming the Feeling That People Wouldn't Like You if They Really Knew You and Overcoming Impostor Syndrome).

Shortly after that, Ed realized that, in reality, he had a very good life and he had everything to look forward to but, despite this, he was miserable because of his low sense of self.  He knew he needed to get help in therapy.  So, he contacted a psychotherapist who specialized in his presenting problem and began attending therapy sessions.

After Ed talked about his presenting problem of having a low sense of self, he discussed his family history with his psychotherapist.  He told her that his brother, Jack, who was older by 12 years, told Ed that their mother was significant depressed after Ed was born.

As a result, Ed was raised primarily by a nanny who was known to be efficient but not warm or loving.  Jack also told Ed that their father was often away on business trips and that Ed was usually left alone in his crib for hours at a time.

As his psychotherapist listened to Ed's account of his early childhood history, she realized that it appeared that he was emotionally neglected a child.  As a result, as an infant, Ed didn't get the necessary mirroring and nurturing necessary for an infant's healthy emotional and psychological development.

His psychotherapist provided Ed with psychoeducation, based on mother-infant research, about the importance of early mirroring and nurturing and the negative consequences to emotional and psychological development when they are missing.

Ed had never made these connections before.  While he was glad to know the possible origin of his low sense of self, he also felt discouraged.  He told his therapist that, while it was helpful to have this information, he didn't know what to do with it to change how he felt about himself.

His psychotherapist explained that before experiential therapy, including trauma therapy, was developed, all that psychotherapists could offer clients was insight into their problems.  But since trauma therapy was developed, these problems could now be worked through.

She also provided Ed with information about EMDR therapy, a trauma therapy, which was well researched. She explained that EMDR therapy was developed more than 30 years ago by a psychologist named Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. (see my articles: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

His psychotherapist recommended that they use EMDR therapy to help Ed to overcome his low sense of self, and Ed agreed.

Over the next several sessions, after the initial period of preparation to do EMDR, Ed provided his psychotherapist with 10 memories that he had about himself from all different times in his life where he felt he was unworthy.

After Ed and his therapist went over the memories, Ed chose a memory to work on using EMDR therapy that still had an emotional charge for him.  Over time, as they processed this memory with EMDR, his psychotherapist asked Ed to think back to the earliest memory that he had where he had the same emotional/physical experiences as he did with the memory that they were working on.

Ed was surprised that he remembered an early memory of being about three years old when he tried to get his mother's attention.  He remembered calling his mother, who was in the room with him, but she didn't respond.  Then, he remembered crying and getting louder and louder, but his mother still didn't respond.  She just sat there.  Eventually, the nanny came, but when she discovered that Ed wasn't hungry and he wasn't in need of anything else that was physical, she put him back in his crib and left.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

After several months of processing similar memories, Ed began to actually feel like he was a worthy individual.  His self perception became a lot more positive and objectively accurate.  He was able to take in others' praise because he felt deserving.  He was also able to interact more easily with others and form closer bonds with friends.

Conclusion
Individuals, who experience early trauma of either neglect or abuse, often develop a negative sense of self because they have internalized these experiences at a young age.

This usually results in a disconnect between what these individuals think and what they feel.  Regardless of what someone might think on an objective level, and all evidence to the contrary, s/he will most likely feel a low sense of self, which can be confusing.

The fictional vignette which was provided above is a simplified version of how trauma therapy can help clients in therapy to overcome early trauma that creates a negative sense of self.

Each client is unique in terms of how s/he responds to trauma therapy, like EMDR, and how long it takes to overcome early trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
Early trauma often has a negative impact on an individual's sense of self, and this affect can be very difficult to overcome alone.

Trauma therapy, like EMDR, was developed to help individuals in therapy to overcome the impact of traumatic experiences (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone).

If you're struggling on your own, you can get help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained as a trauma therapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you have overcome your traumatic experiences, you can live a more fulfilling life free of your traumatic history.

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 clients to overcome trauma experiences.

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.

Becoming the Mother You Wish You Had

Donald Winnicott, a well-respected British psychoanalyst and pediatrician, introduced the idea of the "good enough mother" (see my article: Books: Tea With Winnicott at 87 Chester Square).

Becoming the Mother You Wish You Had

Thousands of British mothers listened to his BBC broadcasts from 1943-1962 during which he spoke about motherhood and infant development in ordinary terms without using psychoanalytic jargon.

He dispelled the idea that mothers had to be perfect--they only needed to be good enough, which was a relief to most mothers (see my article: Perfect vs. Good Enough).

Winnicott's message is as true and valuable today as it was back then because many new mothers fear that they're going to be inadequate, especially women who had mothers who were abusive or neglectful.  This is also true for women who didn't grow up with a mother.

Their fears are that they will make the same mistakes that their mothers made with emotionally damaging effects to their new babies (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Making Mistakes).

The following fictional vignette illustrates these points:

Agnes
When Agnes found out that she was pregnant, after trying to conceive for a few years, she and her husband were elated.

Becoming the Mother You Wish You Had

Although Agnes was thrilled beyond words, she also developed an overwhelming fear that she would become like her mother--cold, emotionally withholding and critical.

Even though her husband attempted to alleviate Agnes' concerns, telling her that she was nothing like her mother, her fears became more intense over time.

She was flooded with memories of frequently being left alone and lonely (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

Whenever, as a child, Agnes attempted to get her mother's attention, her mother treated her like she was a nuisance.

Her father was frequently away on business trips, and when he was home, he secluded himself in his study, so Agnes spent most of her time alone.

As an only child, Agnes was left on her own to play and keep herself entertained.  She would often pretend that she had a kind guardian angel, who loved her, watched over her and kept her safe.

After a while, as the pregnancy progressed, Agnes realized that she needed to get help because her fear of being like her mother began to overwhelm her, so she sought a recommendation from her doctor, who referred Agnes to therapy.

Initially, Agnes had many worries about being in therapy.  She worried that she "wouldn't do it right" or that she would be a disappointment to her therapist (see my article: Fear of Being a Disappointment to Your Therapist).

Her therapist explained the concept of transference in therapy and that many psychotherapy clients,  especially clients who had emotionally withholding and critical parents, had similar fears (see my article: Psychotherapy and the Effects of Parental Transference).

Over time, Agnes began to distinguish her childhood fears from her current relationship with her therapist, who was warm and nonjudgmental (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now."

Agnes never realized that the emotional neglect that she experienced as a child was traumatic (see my article:  What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

She always thought of childhood trauma as being related to physical abuse (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Past Childhood Trauma).

However, as she and her therapist worked together, Agnes understood how damaging it was not feel loved when she was growing up and how much she longed for that as a child (see my article: What is the Connection Between Childhood Emotional Neglect and Problems Later on as an Adult?)

Agnes was also able to work through much of the childhood trauma in therapy.  She mourned for what she wanted from her parents and didn't get.  As part of working through these issues, Agnes learned to nurture and appreciate the child part of herself (as known as inner child).

She also realized that she could be the mother that she wished she had had as a child.  She made distinctions between herself and her mother, and she felt deep down that she was very different from her mother.

As her husband had told her all along, Agnes realized that she was a warm, nurturing person and she wouldn't be cold, withholding or critical.  The difference between her husband telling her and Agnes working it through for herself in therapy was that Agnes actually felt it in therapy.

Over time, Agnes also realized that, even though she would make mistakes because no one is perfect, she didn't have to be a perfect mother--she just needed to be good enough.

Getting Help in Therapy
For many women, who were not fortunate enough to have nurturing, loving mothers, their fear that they will become their mothers is strong.

Although family members and friends can be emotionally supportive and try to convince these women that they're nothing like their mothers, often these are experienced as only words.

Working in therapy to overcome unresolved childhood trauma and work through these fears can make all the difference between being an anxious, self doubting mother and being more self assured.

If the vignette in this article resonates with you, whether you're a mother-to-be or a father-to-be with the same fears, you're not alone.

Getting help from a skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome these fears so that you and your family can have a more fulfilling lives.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing 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.

Having Compassion for the Child That You Were

In a prior article, Psychotherapy and Compassionate Self Acceptance, I discussed some of the challenges that people often face when they start therapy.  In this article, I'm focusing on having compassion for yourself for who you were as a child.

Many people come to therapy feeling ashamed of their problems, even when those problems started when they were children.   Rather than having compassion for what happened to them as children, they have a chronic sense of shame and harsh self judgment.  Often, they believe that whatever happened to them was their fault.

Having Compassion for the Child That You Were

Shame and Self Criticism Often Develops in Childhood
Young children are naturally egocentric, and these feelings of shame and self judgment often develop during childhood and continue into adulthood.

Having Compassion for the Child That You Were: Self Criticism and Shame Often Start in Childhood

As a therapist, when I ask adult clients who feel this way about themselves if they would be as judgmental about a close friend who was struggling with the same issue, they usually say they would not.  Instead of being judgmental, they often say they would feel compassion and would try to help their friend to be more self compassionate.

And yet these clients are often unable to muster the same compassion for themselves.  They're stuck in chronic shame and self criticism.

Often, when I'm working with a client who is feeling such chronic shame that originated in childhood, I help him or her to remember and feel again what it was like to be that young child.

Usually, when a client is able to experience those feelings of sadness, disappointment and anger, as he or she felt those emotions as a child, an emotional shift takes place.  Instead of being ashamed and judgmental, the client feels a certain tenderness for the child self.

The following scenario, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates how this emotional shift can take place:

Mike
Mike came to therapy because he was struggling with crippling shame and self judgment.

To hide his negative feelings about himself from others, he put up a good front.  But putting up this front often left him feeling exhausted and disingenuous.  It also felt it was getting harder to do over time.

As he described his problems, I could feel that Mike was "reporting" his history without emotion as opposed to feeling it.  He recounted one childhood trauma after another, which included physical abuse from an alcoholic father and neglect from a mother who was emotionally disengaged.

Over and over again, Mike blamed himself for not being able to overcome his problems on his own, saying, "I should be able to get over this on my own" and "I'm just too weak to be able to handle my problems."

Gradually, as we worked together in therapy, Mike realized that his negative feelings about himself originated when he was a child.  Many of the negative things he said about himself now were said to him by his father when he was a child.  Without realizing it, Mike had taken on these critical feelings about himself, which made him feel ashamed.

Before we processed the early trauma, I helped Mike to develop the emotional resources that he needed to deal with his traumatic feelings.

After he developed these resources, I helped Mike to slow down and, instead of just "reporting" what happened, to feel what it was like as a child to experience the abuse and emotional neglect.  At that point, Mike was able to say and feel how disappointed and sad he felt that his parents were unable to give him what he needed as a child.

When he was able to experience himself as a child, he was no longer dissociated from his emotions, and he developed a sense of compassion for himself.  This was the beginning of a healing process for Mike.

From there, we went on to work through the trauma in therapy so that he could let go of the shame and harsh self judgment.

Getting Help in Therapy
Developing a sense of compassion for yourself can be challenging, especially if you developed a harsh, judgmental attitude towards yourself and you feel ashamed.

Having Compassion for the Child That You Were

Rather than suffering alone, you can get help in therapy with a licensed therapist who has experience in helping clients to overcome this problem.

Developing a sense of compassion for yourself can help you to lead a happier, more fulfilling life.

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

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

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

Also, see my article:
Healing Shame in Therapy

Overcoming the Guilt You Feel For Not Being Able to Heal Your Parent's Emotional Wounds

Many adults come to therapy because they have longstanding guilt, which started when they were children, for not being able to heal their parents' emotional wounds.  As children, they grew up too fast in an effort to become emotional parents to their parents, instead of their parents parenting them.

Feeling Guilty For Not Being Able to Heal Your Parents' Emotional Wounds

In situations where parents are unable to emotionally parent their children, because of their own emotional deficits, a very young child often steps into this role without even realizing it, at a great emotional cost to him or herself.

The following vignette, which is a fictionalized account of many composite cases, illustrates how a child steps into the role of being her mother's mother:

Sandy:
By the time Sandy was six years old, she spent almost every evening at the kitchen table listening to her mother tell stories about her difficult childhood--the poverty, the loneliness, and the violence in household.  As her mother's sad stories poured out, Sandy wanted, more than anything, to make her mother happy now.  She was anxiously consumed with what she could do to make her  depressed mother happy.  She took on the role of her depressed, single mother's confidant and nurturer.

Sandy's mother was often so overwhelmed by her depression and anxiety that she didn't pay attention to what was going on in Sandy's young life.  By the time she was 11, Sandy was coming home from school, cooking dinner and coaxing her mother, who was often still in bed by late afternoon, to eat.

Going away to college was a tough decision for Sandy because she didn't want to leave her mother alone.  Sandy's mother, who was still preoccupied with her own emotional problems, never came to the college campus to see Sandy and never asked Sandy how she liked her college roommates.

By the time Sandy was in her early 30s, she continued that she just couldn't do enough to try to make her mother happy.  She was consumed with guilt, feeling that she had let her mother down because she couldn't heal her mother's emotional wounds.

When she came to therapy, Sally had no awareness of how she had sacrificed her own emotional well being by trying to be her mother's mother.  All she knew was that she felt tremendously guilty and unhappy.

Often, in situations like this, talk therapy can provide intellectual insight for the parentified child, but more often than not, it doesn't help to overcome the guilt and shame he or she feels.  There is a disconnect between what a parentified child might know on a rational level and what he or she feels on an emotional level.

I have found that mind-body oriented psychotherapy, like EMDR, clinical hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing are much more effective to help clients to overcome the deeply ingrained guilt and shame they feel for not being able to compensate for their parents' emotional deficits.

Rather than just having intellectual insight, these clients are much more likely to heal and overcome their guilt and shame with one of these mind-body oriented psychotherapy treatment modalities. My experience has been that they usually heal on a much deeper level when psychotherapy includes the mind-body connection.

Getting Help in Therapy:  Overcoming Your Own Emotional Wounds
If you grew up as a parentified child to your own mother or father, you might still feel guilt and shame because you were unable to heal your parent's emotional wounds.

You owe it to yourself to get help to overcome your own emotional wounds so you can lead a more fulfilling life. Many people, who grew up as parentified children, have freed themselves from a history of guilt and shame about depressed and anxious parents by getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who uses the mind-body connection in treatment, and you can too.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR 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.

Clinical Hypnosis: Learning to Nurture Your Inner Child

Many clients come to therapy because they feel unloved or unworthy of love in their adult lives.  Most of the time, these feelings stem from feeling unloved, neglected or abused as a child.  Clinical hypnosis offers an opportunity to work through this trauma and to also learn to nurture your inner child.  

What is clinical hypnosis?
See my article: What Is Clinical Hypnosis?

We know we can't undo the past
You might wish you had a childhood that was more loving and nurturing, but we know that wishing won't make it so.  But clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy) offers an opportunity to access that younger part of yourself, as well as your adult self, so that you can nurture yourself now.

Even though we're adults, we still have access to the younger aspects of ourselves
We're aware of this, at times, in our daily lives when we become triggered, as adults, by hurtful situations that we experience now.

For instance, if someone hurts your feelings by saying something unkind to you, it can trigger old, unresolved emotional wounds from when you were a child.  Often, in these situations, you realize that your reaction to these unkind words seems out of proportion to what's been said.  You might even feel overwhelmed by your emotional reaction and wonder, "What's going on?  Why am I having such a strong reaction?"  Often (although not always), this is an indicator that there might be old, unresolved issues that are getting triggered in you.

We can shift our emotional states
We don't always realize it, but we shift our emotional states many times during the course of a normal day.  During the course of any given day, we might shift between feeling like confident adults to rebellious teenagers to vulnerable children.  Now, I'm not talking about multiple personalities.  What I'm referring to is often much more subtle.  It's more than just a shifting mood.  It's an actual shift in our self state.  It's not something we do intentionally most of the time.  We often experience it as "it just happened."

How a skilled hypnotherapist can help
To work through these old, unresolved emotional wounds, a skilled hypnotherapist can help you to access the various self states that are already a part of who you are---including your current "adult self" and your "younger self" in a clinical hypnosis session.  By shifting between these different states, you can experience yourself as an adult nurturing the child part of yourself.  This can be a very healing experience that, with practice, can have long lasting effects.

The child aspect of yourself can still be very much alive and active.  This is true even if you had the best childhood.  The child aspect doesn't only surface because of neglect and abuse.  It also surfaces as the playful and creative part of you.  In fact, I often help people who are stuck creatively to access that part of themselves in hypnotherapy so they can get unstuck.

There's a big difference between hypnotherapists and hypnotists
As I've mentioned many times before, there's a big difference between people who call themselves hypnotists and people who are hypnotherapists.  

The hypnotist often learns various hypnotic techniques, but s/he is not a skilled clinician or trained mental health practitioner.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to learn to nurturing themselves so they can heal and lead more fulfilling lives.

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.

Photo Credit: Photo Pin

Overcoming Childhood Trauma that Affects Your Adult Relationships

Many people are unaware of how much their attitudes and feelings about relationships are affected by early childhood traumatic experiences.  Attitudes and emotions can be unconscious, especially when it comes to romantic relationships.  

When we start to observe our own thoughts and feelings about relationships, we can begin to question in a more objective way whether or not these thoughts and feelings are distorted based on childhood experiences. 

Overcoming Childhood Trauma that Affects Your Adult Relationships

The following is a vignette which, as always, is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Angie:
Angie, who was in her mid-30s, came to therapy because she had longstanding problems in her relationships with men.  Her pattern was that she would meet a man that, initially, she would really like but, after a while, she would begin to fear that she could not trust him.

Angie was aware that these feelings of mistrust weren't based on anything that was actually going on in the relationship.  It was more of a sense that she got.  She would try to dismiss her fear, but it would become increasingly uncomfortable for her to remain in the relationship.  Soon after that, she would find it too uncomfortable and she would end the relationship abruptly.  The pattern was that, after she ended the relationship, she would feel relieved for a while because she was no longer consumed with fear.  But soon after that she would feel very lonely and question whether she had been right to end the relationship.

There were times when she was in and out of the same relationship, unable to decide if she should stay or if she should go.  Her ambivalence and fear created emotional chaos for herself as well as whoever she was seeing at the time.  It also made her feel unstable and unsure of herself.  She felt she couldn't trust her own judgment in these situations.

After a particularly difficult relationship ended, where she was in and out several times, she decided that she needed psychological help to try to understand why she was unable to maintain a relationship with anyone.   She was beginning to worry that she wouldn't ever be able to sustain a romantic relationship.  She wanted to be in a stable relationship, get married, and have children.  She feared that if she didn't change, she would never get married and she wouldn't have children.

Angie's early childhood was chaotic.  Her father, who was a salesman and an active alcoholic, had difficulty holding onto a job.  As an intelligent, charismatic man, he would impress employers, initially, as a very promising salesperson.  He had a way with customers that soon won them over.  At the start of each job, he would be making good commissions on the services that he sold.  But sooner or later, his performance would suffer due to his alcoholism.  He would stop showing up for work.  He would stop responding to customer calls.  And soon after that, he would be fired.

Angie's mother was rather passive.  She tried as best as she could to keep the family financially afloat, but the family finances were often precarious.  They also moved around a lot from one city to the next as Angie's father lost one job and started another.  Angie would only spend one or two years in a particular school, making friends and then having to say goodbye when the family moved to a new city.

Angie loved both of her parents a lot, but she also felt angry with each of them.  She couldn't understand why her father, who was a loving dad, couldn't just stop drinking.  Whenever he was "on the wagon," he seemed happier and more optimistic. At those times, she felt hopeful that he was on an upward spiral.

He would come home from work, whistling a tune, pick her up, swing her around, kiss her mom, and talk about his workday in a glowing, happy way.  During those times, Angie saw her dad as her hero.  She felt there wasn't anything that he couldn't do.  Unfortunately, those times didn't last very long.  Then, Angie would find her father in the den, brooding, consumed with his own thoughts, drinking whiskey, and in a dark mood.  If he saw her looking at him, he would silently close the door.

Angie could never reconcile these two sides of her father.  After a while, she learned to be very vigilant  to try to determine if he was the happy, loving father that she loved or if he was in one of his dark, emotionally inaccessible moods and often drunk states.  She worried a lot, and she hated her mother at times for being so passive.

By the time she went away to college, Angie was relieved to be away from her parents.  She continued to worry about them but, at least, she didn't have to be in the day-to-day chaos of life at home.  In high school, she had both male and female friends, but she didn't date, feeling too shy and unsure of herself. In college, she began to feel a little more confident, which enabled her to start dating.

From the start, Angie felt increasingly anxious whenever her feelings for a man developed to more than just a physical attraction.  Her friends were her sounding board about her relationships, and she would spend a lot of time talking to them about whether she could trust whoever she was seeing.  When her fears became unbearable, she would break off the relationship, often against her friends' advice.  They would try to tell her that her fears were baseless, but she couldn't tolerate her anxiety any more and would feel compelled to end the relationship.  This became her pattern in relationships.

Overcoming Childhood Trauma that Affects Your Adult Relationships

In therapy, Angie started making connections between her chaotic relationships and the chaos of her childhood, especially her relationship with her father.  But this was only the beginning.  

Having an intellectual understanding of her problem was not enough to allow her to change her pattern in her relationships.  She needed to work through the earlier trauma.  Her therapist recommended that they work through the earlier trauma using a mind-body oriented psychotherapy called Somatic Experiencing.

Using Somatic Experiencing, Angie was able to develop not just an intellectual understanding about her problems but, more importantly, she able to overcome the damage of her earlier history so that it no longer dominated her adult life.  Over time, she was able to develop a satisfying relationship with a man  without being overcome by her usual fears.

Somatic Experiencing - A Mind-Body Psychotherapy
Somatic Experiencing is not a "magic bullet."  It requires an openness and willingness to do trauma work.   As opposed to regular talk therapy, it tends to be more effective in allowing psychotherapy clients to overcome emotional trauma that has been affecting them, often for many years.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  I am certified in mind-body oriented psychotherapy.  

I have helped many clients to work through childhood trauma that had been negatively impacting them so that they could lead more fulfilling lives.

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 article:  Fear of Dealing with Past Childhood Trauma