An Emotional Dilemma in a Relationship: Wanting and Dreading Love

Many people, who have experienced childhood trauma, come to therapy because they feel stuck and confused when it comes to romantic relationships.  They often feel highly ambivalent about the possibility of having an intimate connection to another person.  

An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love

On the one hand, they might be very lonely and long for someone who would love them and that they could love.  On the other hand, they might also feel extremely frightened of allowing themselves to be that emotionally vulnerable.  And therein lies the dilemma.

Early Attachment Problems Can Cause Problems in Relationships Later On
Usually, people who go back and forth between wanting and dreading a deep emotional connection experienced emotional attachment problems with one or both parents or caregivers.  Based on infant research, we now know how important early attachment is to having a healthy emotional life and being able to form intimate attachments with others.

When parents are either emotionally unreliable, neglectful, abusive, depressed, or emotionally unattuned to their young children, these children are more apt to grow up feeling emotionally insecure and vulnerable about forming relationships.  It's hard for them to trust.  They're very afraid of getting hurt or being emotionally abandoned again.  As a result, although they might feel very isolated and lonely, it's often difficult to allow themselves to open up emotionally to others.

An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love

Fear of Opening Up in Therapy
Often, people who struggle between wanting and dreading an intimate connection find it difficult to come to therapy to get help for this issue.  Coming to therapy means opening up and taking a risk with a therapist, which means allowing themselves to be vulnerable.  How do they know they can trust the therapist when they couldn't trust their own parents?  It's a dilemma.

For many people who somewhat overcome their fear to come to therapy, at least enough to come to a first session, their experience is often one of being hypervigilant--waiting to see if there are any signs that the therapist will betray or hurt them in some way.

A skilled clinician, who has worked with clients on developmental attachment problems, will know not to take it personally.  She would know that she must take her time to help the client to form a therapeutic alliance over time to build a rapport and trust.

Many clients, who suffer with developmental attachment issues, find it difficult to sustain treatment, and they leave after a few sessions.  Often, they give another "reason" for leaving therapy--money or time issues, never revealing that it's their dread of opening up that's making them want to flee from treatment.

For clients who can sustain treatment with therapists who have expertise in working with attachment issues, if they can allow themselves to build a rapport and trust with the an empathetic therapist, over time, they can also learn to form trusting and loving relationships outside of treatment.

This is the kind of therapeutic work that takes time.  A client, who has a fear of getting close to others, can't be rushed into overcoming his or her fear.  Each client is different and, if there is progress in treatment, it will probably be a process where it is two steps forward and one step backward due to the high level of ambivalence and fear.  There is also usually a lot of underlying shame of feeling "not good enough" or "not lovable."

Getting Help in Therapy

Wanting and Dreading Love:  Feeling Lost?  Get Help

My experience has been that using a combination of Somatic Experiencing, psychodynamic psychotherapy, resourcing (i.e., helping the client to develop better coping skills and an increased capacity to tolerate vulnerability) along with an expertise in developmental attachment issues, is often the most effective way to help clients to overcome the dilemma of longing for love and dreading it at the same time.

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 abut 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.

Learning to Make Better Choices in Romantic Relationships

As a psychotherapist in New York City, over the years, I've see many clients, both men and women, who come to therapy in despair because they continue  to make unhealthy choices in their romantic relationships.

Learning to Make Better Choices in Romantic Relationships

Most of them want very much to be in healthy, loving relationships, but they keep choosing the same type of romantic partners who are almost certainly guaranteed to disappoint and break their hearts. Usually, they say they'd like to be with a kind, loving person, but they're often attracted to just the opposite type of person--emotionally unavailable, selfish, narcissistic, mean or abusive.

Looking at this phenomena on the surface, you might wonder: How can there be such a disparity between what they say they want or who they're attracted to?  It just doesn't seem to make sense. But looking below the surface at the underlying reasons that drive the attractions, we find the unconscious forces that make these unhealthy choices so compelling.

Usually, when there's such a disparity between the type of romantic partner someone says they want vs the type of people they're actually attracted to, these attractions are driven by early, often preverbal, bonds to their earliest caregivers, usually a mother or father.  

Of course, this isn't always a negative thing.  Many people were fortunate enough to have loving, nurturing parents. But if you weren't so fortunate, your early bonding experience might be getting in the way of your h making good choices for yourself.  You might be caught in a cycle of basing your relationships on unhealthy attractions.

For people caught in this cycle of wanting a healthy relationship, but continuing to choose emotionally unhealthy people, the dilemma becomes that, on the one hand, even when they meet people who are potential health partners, they're not attracted to them. There's no spark or chemistry, so there's little motivation to pursue these relationships.  On the other hand, when they meet the type of person they say they want to avoid, fireworks go off.

This can be a very discouraging dilemma.  But it is possible to change these dynamics  in therapy.  Using hypnotherapy, Somatic Experiencing therapy and dynamic talk therapy, it's possible to not only understand why you're continuing to make poor choices but also to learn to have attractions be more in synch with what you know is emotionally healthy for you.

About Me:
I am a New York City psychotherapist who provides therapy for individuals and couples, including dynamic talk therapy, hypnotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, and EMDR.

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.