How Does Shame Develop at an Early Age?

Shame often begins during early childhood due to parenting styles and early experiences (see my article: Shame is at the Root of Most Emotional Problems).

How Does Shame Develop at an Early Age?

There are a number of factors that influence the development of shame at an early age including:

• Parental demands for perfection

• Lack of parental warmth

• Harsh criticism

Harsh Criticism and Shame

• Physical, emotional and sexual abuse

• Emotional neglect
  

• Witnessing domestic violence

• Emotionally unstable parent(s)

• Unpredictable or unstable parenting

• Parents who abuse substances or engage in other impulsive or compulsive behavior

How Does Childhood Shame Show Up in Adulthood?

Children who grow up being shamed will grow up to be adults who experience shame, which can affect all their adult interactions, including romantic relationships, familial relationships and relationships with work colleagues.

Shame during childhood often leads to repeating unhealthy patterns in adulthood (see my article: Why Are Childhood Trauma and Shame Affecting You Now?).

Here are some of the ways that childhood shame show up in adulthood:

Self Sabotaging Behavior: 

• Aiming too low

• Settling for less

• Self abandonment including neglecting your own needs to please others (see my article: Fawning as a Trauma Response)

Shame and Self Abandonment

• Avoiding commitment which can include fear of rejection and feeling inadequate (see my article: An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love)

• Pushing away or distancing yourself from a romantic partner because you believe you're not good enough

• Perfectionism including striving for unrealistic and unattainable goals which adds to your feelings of inadequacy

• Decreased self care including neglecting your own needs which can have a negative impact on your mental and physical health

Sabotaging Relationships:

• Ignoring red flags in a relationship including dismissing early warning signs of an unhealthy relationship (see my article: Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships)

• Shaming, controlling or domineering behavior to manipulate your partner and take the focus away from your own insecurities

Shaming, Controlling and Domineering Behavior

• Creating negative narratives including interpreting your partner's actions as a form of  rejection or disapproval--even when these actions are not

• Withholding feelings including avoiding vulnerability and conflict by withholding by emotions

Impact on Emotional Connection and Intimacy

• Problems relating to others because shame makes it difficult to develop and maintain healthy relationships (see my article: Overcoming Sexual Shame and Guilt Due to Cultural Issues)

Shame in Relationships

• Difficulty with vulnerability including fear of rejection or criticism which can make it difficult to open up to be emotionally vulnerable

• Fear of rejection due to shame which can lead to self sabotaging behavior and emotional distancing

• Difficulty with forgiveness due to shame can make it difficult to forgive yourself or your partner, which is an obstacle to feeling good about yourself and problems with relationship repair (see my articles: Learning to Forgive Yourself and The Psychological Stages of Forgiveness)

Getting Help in Therapy

Shame is a complex emotion which can be very challenging to overcome on your own (see my article: Overcoming Shame in Therapy).

Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Shame

If you can relate to the signs mentioned in this article, you owe it to yourself to get help in trauma therapy.

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome the debilitating effect of shame so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

Also See My Other Articles About Shame:

How to Overcome Shame Spiraling

Clients Struggling With Shame Can Leave Therapy Prematurely

What is the Difference Between Toxic Shame and Healthy Shame?

About Me

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

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

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

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

 

How Deep Rooted Insecurity Can Affect Your Ability to Initiate Intimacy in Your Relationship

Deep rooted insecurity can create sexual problems, including problems with sexual initiation.  See my articles: 

How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Relationship

What is Your Sexual Initiation Style?

Insecurity often develops during the early attachment years of childhood when attachment styles develop (see my article: The Early Attachment Bond and Insecure Attachment).

Emotional Insecurity Can Affect Sexual Initiation

When children are emotionally invalidated by one or both parents, they often grow up feeling they are not good enough and unlovable (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

These feelings often carry over into adulthood and adult relationships, especially romantic relationships.

These insecurities aren't always evident during the early stage of a relationship because the heady new relationship energy (NRE) can mask these feelings, but once the so-called honeymoon phase is over and the relationship becomes more emotionally intimate, these insecurities become more evident because emotional intimacy includes vulnerability which can be scary for insecure adults (see my article: Vulnerability is the Pathway to Emotional and Sexual Intimacy).

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette illustrates how insecurity can affect sexual intimacy and how therapy can help. As always, this vignette is a composite of many different cases to protect confidentiality.

Bob and Gina

During the early stage of their relationship, Bob and Gina, who were in their early 30s, were both satisfied with their emotional and sexual connection.  But a year into their relationship Bob stopped initiating sex and Gina was unhappy about this.

Whenever Gina initiated sex, they both enjoyed it. But, even after Bob promised he would initiate the next time, something always stopped him and he didn't understand what was getting in his way.

At first, Gina thought that Bob found her sexually undesirable because she had gained a little weight (see my article: Is a Negative Body Image Affecting Your Sense of Self?).

Emotional Insecurity Can Affect Sexual Initiation

But Bob reassured her that he found her as attractive as ever and he wanted to initiate sex, but whenever they were in bed together, he felt too insecure and self conscious to initiate.

The longer the problem went on between them, the more ashamed and guilty Bob felt and the more emotionally and sexually frustrated Gina felt. 

After a while, Gina stopped initiating sex and she started flirting with a new male coworker who was also flirty. Although she liked the attention, she didn't want to have an affair, so she told Bob she wanted them to attend sex therapy as a couple.

During the early phase of sex therapy, their sex therapist had two individual sessions with each of them to get their family histories and sexual/relationship histories.

During his individual sessions Bob discussed how he was expected to fend for himself emotionally as a child. Whenever he felt sad or upset about anything, his parents dismissed and invalidated him. They told him he was "weak" for feeling this way and they refused to comfort him.

He grew up feeling he wasn't good enough and that he was unlovable. These feelings, which continued into adulthood, got in the way of all his romantic relationships. 

He told the sex therapist that, initially, during the early phase of a relationship, he was carried along by the excitement of the new relationship energy so he didn't have a problem initiating sex. But once the relationship became more emotionally intimate, all of his insecurities came up so he felt too insecure to initiate sex.

The sex therapist referred Bob to an individual trauma therapist to work on his early attachment issues and Gina and Bob continued to work in sex therapy as a couple.

Over time, Gina began to understand that Bob's insecurities about initiating sex had nothing to do with her.  She also developed empathy for what Bob went through as a child when his insecurity first developed.

Bob's individual trauma therapist used EMDR therapy and Somatic Experiencing therapy to help him to work through his early trauma.

Sex Therapy and Trauma Therapy Can Help

Their sex therapist, who worked in collaboration with the individual trauma therapist, helped Bob and Gina to gradually get comfortable with each other sexually.

Eventually, although it took a lot of work, the combination of individual trauma therapy and sex therapy helped Bob and Gina to have a more satisfying sex life together.

Conclusion

Early insecure attachment issues often carry over into adulthood and adult relationships.

Insecure attachment can show up in different ways in romantic relationships, including in a couple's sexual relationship.

Working on the early attachment issues and related sexual problems can help a couple to work through their problems so they can have a satisfying and meaningful relationship.

Even though the couple in the vignette was presented as a cisgender heterosexual monogamous couple, sexual problems can develop in any relationship regardless of gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity or relationship type, including consensually nonmonogamous relationships.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been unable to resolve sexual problems on your own, you could benefit from working with a skilled psychotherapist.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has the expertise you need.

About Me

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

Relationship Skills: What is Self Awareness?

The ability to be self aware is an important skill.  It's a necessary skill in all relationships, and it can be especially challenging in romantic relationships because there are so many emotional layers in terms of what's going on between the two people.

What is Self Awareness?

There is what's happening now between the two people as well as what each of them bring from their family history, history in other relationships and other significant emotional experiences, including positive as well as traumatic experiences.

What is Self Awareness and How Does It Develop?

Self awareness is the ability to:

• tap into your own feelings, thoughts and actions
• recognize your own strengths and challenges
• recognize how your own feelings, thoughts and actions affect how you feel about yourself and others
• recognize other people's emotional needs and feelings
• recognize how you affect others
• recognize how other people see you

    Early Childhood Experiences

Self awareness starts in childhood when parents and other people close to the children reflect back to them the emotions they are experiencing.

Let's start by looking at an early childhood example in Scenario 1 when parenting goes well i and Scenario 2 when it goes wrong.

Example:

For instance, a child of three or four, who is experiencing a temper tantrum because their mother just told them that they can only choose one toy and not two in the toy store, is not at a developmental stage yet to understand their emotional reaction.  

They don't have the ability yet to self reflect or have self awareness in this situation where they're upset, so they depend on the parent to help them.

Scenario 1:

The mother responds to the child, "I know you're really sad and angry that you can't have this other toy and that's why you're so upset." 

She is doing more than just trying to calm the child down.  

The Parent Helps the Child with Overwhelming Emotions

She is helping the child to identify what they are feeling by putting words to the child's emotions. 

By framing the child's experience with words, she is also providing a metaphorical container for the overwhelming emotions the child is experiencing so they can feel more manageable.

Let's say, as part of comforting the child, she is holding the child so she is physically soothing the child.  

At the same time, she is also letting the child know that, even though they are upset now, things are going to be okay.  She is also letting the child know that, even though they might be angry with the mother at that moment, she still loves them.  Their relationship remains stable.

She is also normalizing the child's reaction at the same time she is still setting a boundary with them.  So, she's not changing her mind and giving the child the other toy just to get the child to be quiet, which would be inconsistent parenting.  She's communicating in a way the child can understand by comforting the child at the same time she sets limits with the child.  

Over time, with the help of the mother (or whoever is the primary caregiver), this child learns that they can get upset and survive the upset.  This is an internal experience of knowing from many prior similar experiences.

This isn't a concept the child can put into words at such a young age.  Instead, it's something they internalize at a deep level that will continue to develop over time throughout their life if they are parented in this way.

Over time, if all else goes relatively well, this child will develop the ability to name their emotions as well as a tolerance for frustration in ways that are manageable.  

When this child becomes an adult, they will have internalized this self knowledge many times over.  It will be a comfort during challenging times ("I've gotten through other hard experiences") and contributes to their self awareness.

Scenario 2:  Same Situation (Child is upset about not getting a second toy)

The mother responds, "I'm only buying you one toy! Stop being such a baby!  Don't be selfish! You're driving me crazy!"

How Problems With Self Awareness Begin

Obviously, this isn't an appropriate or helpful way to respond to a child.  But more than that, this child isn't being soothed.  Instead, the child is being criticized and made to feel like an emotional burden ("I'm not lovable").

In Scenario 2 the child is left on their own to fend with overwhelming feelings of sadness and anger.  

On top of that, the child not only has to cope with their own feelings alone but the child is also being told indirectly that they are responsible for the mother's feelings.

There is no emotional support, no emotional containment or framing of the experience for this child.

If this is an ongoing experience, the child will grow up without developing self awareness. They would probably also feel they are an emotional burden to people who are close to them, including romantic relationships (see my article: What is Your Attachment Style?).

They will also probably suppress uncomfortable emotions because they never learned how to tolerate these feelings in manageable ways when they were younger with the help of a caregiver.

This second scenario isn't about blaming parents.  Usually when a parent responds in this way, it's because their own feelings were also dismissed when they were younger.  This is what they internalized and, without any other mitigating factors, this is how they parent their own children.

Next Article

This article is the first in a series about self awareness. 

I'll continue this to discuss this topic in my next article:

Relationship Skills: Why is Self Awareness Important to You as an Individual and in Your Relationship?

About Me

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

Sexual Pleasure and the Erotic Self - Part 1

In my last article, Are You Too Ashamed to Share Your Sexual Fantasies With Your Spouse?, I began a discussion about sexual fantasies and the shame and guilt that people often feel about talking to their spouse or partner about those fantasies.  As I mentioned, aside from sharing these fantasies, many people feel ashamed of their own internal fantasies, which creates inhibitions for eroticism and sexual pleasure.

Sexual Pleasure and Developing the Erotic Self

In this article, my focus will be on defining sexual pleasure, the health benefits associated with sex, and the obstacles to developing the female erotic self. 

Although the emphasis is on women in this article, men can also benefit from this information to help their partner to feel more comfortable with her sexual self.

What is Sexual Pleasure?

Developing the erotic self involves knowing what is sexually pleasurable to you.

According to Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., sex educator and author of the New York Times bestseller, Come As You Are, rather than focusing on having an orgasm, which makes sex too performance based, "pleasure is the measure" for individuals' and couples' sexual activity.  This means experiencing pleasure for pleasure's sake.

According to the American Sexual Health Association, "we learn how to experience sexual pleasure for pleasure's sake by understanding our own sexual desires and responses."  

They state that no matter what stimulates sexual pleasure, "we are all sexual beings" so how you choose to behave as a sexual being is up to you.  There is no right or wrong way to experience sexual pleasure.

What Are the Health Benefits of Sex?

Aside from the pleasurable aspects of sex, according to WebMD, sex has been shown to promote health benefits, including:

• Improving sleep
• Reducing stress
• Boosting the immune system
• Boosting libido (having sex can make sex better and help increase sexual desire)
• Lowering heart attack risk
• Lowering blood pressure
• Counting as exercise (sex uses about five calories per minute)
• Reducing pain by releasing hormones that help raise your pain threshold

Obstacles to Developing the Erotic Self

Here is a brief summary of the issues that can create obstacles to the development of the erotic self:

• Early Childhood Experiences, including Trauma: From an early age, children are often forbidden to explore their bodies sexually.  Children who are caught masturbating are often shamed by their parents.  Some parents have even told their children that touching their genitals is a "sin" or that there will be negative consequences to masturbating, like growing hair on the palms of their hands.  So, these children learn that touching themselves is shameful and, by extension, sex is shameful.  In addition, children who are sexually abused are traumatized. They often blame themselves for the abuse and can grow up to associate sex with being "bad" or "dirty."

• Shame and Guilt Related to Religious or Political Views: Some religions and spiritual communities expressly forbid children from exploring their bodies sexually through self touch and masturbation.  Even more liberal spiritual communities often tell children and adolescents that they will learn about sex after they are married.  However, this causes many adolescents to shut down sexually so they have little awareness of their bodies, and this shutdown continues into adulthood after they are married.  In addition, adults, who have certain political views, might judge their sexual fantasies as being inconsistent with their political views. For instance, a woman who considers herself a feminist might feel ashamed of her sexual fantasy to be dominated sexually by a man (see my article:  Destigmatizing Sexual Fantasies of Power and Submission).

• Societal Objectification of Women: Women are often used to sell products, like cars, magazines or other products. As such, women are objectified and seen as being sexual solely for the pleasure of men.  

• Internalized Sexism and Misogyny: Related to societal perceptions of women as sexual beings, women often internalize these perceptions because the message is so pervasive.  

• Body Image Problems: The images that women often see in magazines, online and on TV are of women with "perfect bodies." The message, which is often not so subtle, is that if you're a woman and you don't have a body like these images, you are inferior.  This often creates problems with body image which can lead to body dysmorphia and, in some cases, eating disorders.

• Stress, Anxiety and Burnout: Stress, anxiety and burnout are big obstacles to sexual pleasure.  When someone is overwhelmed, they cannot relax enough to experience pleasure.  

Overcoming these obstacles to developing an erotic self can be formidable, but not impossible.  In my next article, I'll focus on how to experience sexual pleasure and develop the erotic self.

Next Article: Sexual Pleasure and Developing the Erotic Self - Part 2

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been unable to overcome obstacles that are hindering you, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to overcome these problems.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed psychotherapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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