The Silent Treatment and Gaslighting As Emotional and Psychological Abuse

The combination of the silent treatment and gaslighting is a powerful, deeply destructive form of emotional and psychological abuse. 

When used together, these tactics often create a severe relational trauma that targets a person’s emotional stability, psychological sense of self and their nervous system, forcing them into a chronic state of hypervigilance and self-doubt. 

Josephine Ferraro, LCSW provides mind-body oriented trauma therapy and couples psychotherapy in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NYC (10011).

To understand how this dynamic dismantles a person's sense of reality, it helps to examine how each behavior functions individually before looking at how the dynamic combines to form an abusive tactical system.

What is the Silent Treatment vs. Taking a Healthy Break?

It is crucial to distinguish the silent treatment from a partner who simply communicates that they need a temporary break from a heated argument.

When someone requests space in a healthy way, they usually do so because they feel emotionally overwhelmed or notice that a conflict is getting out of control. The explicit understanding is that this is a temporary pause. Both people agree to step away to calm down and return to the conversation in a calmer, safer state.

Conversely, the silent treatment is a deliberate, uncommunicated, and prolonged withdrawal of connection. It is not an attempt to calm down; it is an intentional control tactic designed to inflict emotional punishment, force compliance, and establish dominance by treating the other person as if they do not exist.

What is Gaslighting and How Does It Manifest?

Gaslighting involves systematically manipulating someone into questioning their own thoughts, perceptions, memories and overall sanity. It is a calculated control mechanism designed to erode a person’s confidence in their own reality, making them increasingly dependent upon the person abusing them.

In my Greenwich Village psychotherapy private practice, I frequently help individuals identify the common tactics and phrases used in gaslighting:

• Denial of Blatant Facts: Flatly stating "That never happened" or "I never said that," even when they are confronted with objective proof.

• Trivializing Your Emotional Reality: Using phrases like "You're overreacting," "You're too sensitive," or "You're making something out of nothing."
• Diverting and Blocking: Shifting the focus by telling you "You're just imagining things" or actively accusing you of being "unhinged" or "crazy."
• Twisting Information: Manipulating the timeline of events to rewrite history, making you feel entirely guilty, responsible, or at fault for their behavior.

Over time, exposure to these tactics often causes distinct internal warning signs, including constant second-guessing of your own memories, systemic self-doubt, chronic anxiety, and a pervasive feeling that you can no longer trust your own mind.

How Do Silence and Gaslighting Interact as Abuse?

When these two behaviors are combined, they create a devastating phenomenon I refer to as gaslighting by silence. This occurs when an abuser engages in a cruel, prolonged emotional shutdown, but then completely denies that they were being cold, or insists they were "just taking space."

By denying the palpable icy reality in the room, they force you into a profound "crazy-making" doubt. They might ignore you for days after a minor disagreement, and then suddenly walk into the room acting as if absolutely nothing happened. If you attempt to bring up the painful freeze, they turn it back on you, accusing you of starting drama or overreacting to their silence.

This cyclical pattern functions through an unpredictable rhythm of punishment and reward. The abuser uses a wall of silence to starve you of attachment warmth, manipulating you into "working" to earn back their communication. 

You may find yourself apologizing for things you didn't do just to break the agonizing freeze. This dynamic is highly characteristic of individuals with deep narcissistic tendencies, utilizing the combined weight of silence and denial to entirely evade accountability for their relational actions.

The Psychological and Somatic Trauma of Emotional Abuse

Living inside this dynamic causes severe psychological and neurobiological harm. When your partner selectively cuts off connection while manipulating your perception of reality, your system interprets it as a direct threat to survival:

• Internalized Shame and Hypervigilance: Victims quickly internalize the blame, developing a deep sense of inadequacy and guilt. You begin "walking on eggshells," constantly monitoring the abuser’s mood shifts to predict and avoid the next painful freeze.
• Trauma Bonding: The unpredictable cycle of severe emotional abandonment followed by sudden, warm reconnection creates powerful trauma bonds. This intermittent reinforcement hooks your nervous system, making you feel increasingly desperate for the abuser's validation (see my article: What is Trauma Bonding?).
• Physical and Neurological Pain: Neurobiological research demonstrates that being deliberately ostracized or ignored activates the exact same region of the human brain—the anterior cingulate cortex—that registers physical pain. Emotional abuse hurts emotionally and physically.
• Long-Term Trauma Responses: Prolonged exposure to this stress response can alter your brain chemistry, leading to symptoms that mirror complex posttraumatic stress disorder (cPTSD), including chronic stress, depression, identity erosion, and persistent cognitive confusion (see my article: What is Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?).

What Can You Do If You Are Experiencing This Dynamic?

If you recognize these patterns in your relationship, healing begins by shifting out of isolation and reclaiming your orientation to reality:

• Name the Behavior: Acknowledge explicitly that the combination of silence and denial is a structural form of abuse meant to control you. Realizing this can help stop the painful thought spiral of self-blame.
• Establish Clear Boundaries: Communicate clearly that you will not engage with a partner who refuses to communicate openly, and step away when the silent wall goes up.
• Document the Reality: Keep a private, secure written log of incidents, dates, and conversations. When you feel a thought spiral coming on, review your logs to anchor yourself to the actual facts.

• Engage in Experiential Therapy: Reach out to trusted loved ones to break the cycle of isolation. Working with a trauma-informed psychotherapist using bottom-up, mind-body oriented approaches can help you safely process the stored somatic stress, clear the cognitive fog, and restore your internal safety (see my article: Experiential Therapy vs Traditional Talk Therapy: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective?).

### Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the silent treatment feel so physically painful and exhausting?

The brain processes relational rejection and deliberate exclusion in the exact same pathways that register physical injury. When a partner uses silence to punish you, your nervous system interprets the sudden lack of connection as a threat to your safety, triggering a defensive cascade and chronic stress that exhausts your physical body.

How can I stop the cycle of worry and self-doubt when a partner gaslights me?

Breaking a thought spiral caused by gaslighting requires grounding yourself in objective reality. Documenting incidents as they happen gives your mind an anchor to look back on when self-doubt creeps in. Additionally, working with a psychotherapist in a mind-body framework helps you reconnect with your internal felt sense so you can trust your own perceptions again.

👤 Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist and Trauma Specialist
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist and trauma therapist with over 25 years of clinical experience.

I see individual adults and people in relationships in my psychotherapy private practice located at 412 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue), Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York, NY 10011.

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an initial appointment.

My trauma therapy skills include:

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: Internal Family Systems helps you explore and heal different internal "parts" of your personality—such as defensive, anxious, or wounded parts—to develop self-compassion and connect with your undamaged Core Self.

• EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing helps the brain reprocess traumatic, stuck memories using bilateral stimulation, reducing the emotional distress and bodily anxiety associated with past events.

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: A mind-body oriented therapeutic approach that helps release the stress and trauma locked in the nervous system, allowing you to move past chronic states of fight, flight, or freeze.

• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy focuses on processing difficult emotional experiences in real-time with a supportive therapist, fostering rapid healing through deep emotional connection.

• Clinical Hypnosis (Hypnotherapy): A therapeutic technique that uses guided relaxation and focused attention to access the unconscious mind, helping to uncover deep-seated patterns and reinforce positive changes.

I am also an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFT) and a Certified Sex Therapist.

In-person sessions are available at my Greenwich Village office and via teletherapy for clients residing across New York State (NYS).

Contact Me
To find out. more, contact me:

🌐 Visit My Website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist 

✉️ Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

📞 Call: (917) 742-2624 (during standard business hours)

Recognizing Psychological Manipulation: How Gaslighting Erodes Your Trust in Yourself

When you decide to begin psychotherapy to heal deep-seated wounds, you discover that the path to recovery is rarely linear. Many clients come to my Greenwich Village private practice feeling disconnected from their own reality, deeply trapped in an exhausting cycle of worry and self-doubt.

Psychotherapy with Josephine Ferraro, LCSW in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NYC (10011) provides a safe, grounded space to process the psychological fog of manipulation and reclaim your trust in yourself.

Psychological manipulation or gaslighting involves someone else controlling your thoughts, emotions, or behavior. Because it often starts out small and builds up gradually over time, it creates a subtle internal stress response that can be incredibly difficult to detect when you are in the middle of it.

Often, people outside of this dynamic can spot the manipulation more easily than you can. When you are close to someone, you naturally want to believe the best in them, which frequently leads you to second-guess your own internal experience.

Why is Psychological Manipulation So Damaging?

The primary goal of psychological manipulation is control, whether the tactics used are subtle or overt. In many cases, the person doing the manipulation might not even be fully aware of their own behavioral patterns.

Failing to recognize this manipulation can cause you to fall into deep denial. Over time, a sustained manipulation dynamic will erode your interoceptive awareness. You may lose trust in your own thoughts, feelings, and choices, relying solely on the person who is mistreating you. This is how you gradually give up your inner power to a manipulative partner.

Signs of Psychological Manipulation in a Relationship

A manipulator rarely uses every single tactic, but they rely on specific, repetitive patterns to maintain the upper hand. In my psychotherapy practice, I frequently help clients unpack these common indicators:

• They Blame You for Their Actions: They refuse to take responsibility for their own choices. If they lose their temper or engage in destructive behavior, they will twist the narrative to claim that your actions made them do it.
• They Convince You That You Are Wrong: They are relentless in rewriting facts. They will argue past your boundaries and exhaust your mental energy until you finally concede and take the blame just to keep the peace.
• They Distort What You Say: A skilled manipulator excels at semantic trickery. They will take your words, pull them out of context, and turn them against you until you begin to experience severe anxious overthinking and doubt your own memory.
• They Blame You for Lack of Trust: If you question their secrecy or behavior, they will immediately portray themselves as the injured party, accusing you of being untrustworthy or unsupportive, even if they have repeatedly broken your trust.

• They Maintain a Double Standard with Secrets: They withhold information regarding where they are, who they are with, or what they are doing to maintain control. However, if you have a completely innocent moment of privacy, they will view it as a threat and accuse you of keeping secrets (see my article: What is the Difference Between Privacy and Secrecy in Relationships?).
• They Invade Your Privacy: Because a manipulator feels uncomfortable when they cannot dictate every aspect of your lifestyle, they may demand access to your phone, emails, or text messages, while remaining hyper-protective of their own personal boundaries.
• They Weaponize Guilt: If you make a mistake, it is never truly forgiven. They will keep bringing up past errors weeks, months, or years later as a strategic way to keep your self-esteem low.
• They Rely on Passive-Aggressive Tactics: When they are angry, they avoid direct communication. Instead, they act out in subtle, punishing ways designed to trigger your anxiety, later denying that their behavior was intentional.
• They Use Your Vulnerability Against You: They may offer to assist you in a time of need, but once you accept their help, they reframe the situation to make you feel weak, dependent, or inferior for needing support.
• They Isolate You From Your Support System: They know that loved ones and supportive friends will offer an objective perspective on the relationship. To prevent you from getting healthy external feedback, they will actively discourage you from seeing family and friends.
• They Start Arguments Over Minor Details: They will intentionally pick fights over trivial matters to keep your nervous system on edge, wearing down your resolve so that you automatically give in to their demands.
• They Blame You for Other People’s Behavior: If someone else flirts with you or pays you attention, a manipulative partner will accuse you of encouraging the behavior based on what you wore or how you spoke, masking their control as common jealousy.
• They Talk Down to You and Belittle You: They adopt a consistently condescending or dismissive tone. This belittling behavior is a direct form of emotional abuse intended to make you believe you cannot survive without them.
• They Behave in a Centered, Narcissistic Way: They force the entire relationship to orbit around their emotional state. If you ask for empathy or support, they will invalidate your experience, claim their life is much harder, and convince you that you have no right to your feelings.

While this article outlines how manipulation unfolds between two partners, these destructive dynamics can manifest in families, friendships, and professional workplaces as well.

Reclaiming Your Reality in Psychotherapy

Living under the weight of psychological manipulation chips away at your sense of self until you feel completely disempowered. Over time, you might find yourself stuck in a deep depression or trauma bond, continuing to appease your partner because the alternative feels terrifying.

You do not have to untangle this confusion alone. In my Manhattan private practice, I provide a compassionate, secure holding environment where we move past the restrictive inner storylines that keep you feeling stuck. 

Combining deep relational insight with mind-body oriented experiential therapies allows your nervous system to find emotional stabililty, giving you the clarity and confidence to trust your own mind again.

👤 About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist and trauma therapist with over 25 years of clinical experience. 

I see individual adults and people in relationships in my psychotherapy private practice located at 412 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue), Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York, NY 10011. 

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an initial appointment. My approach is experiential with advanced skills in:

• EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing helps the brain reprocess traumatic, stuck memories using bilateral stimulation, reducing the emotional distress and bodily anxiety associated with past events.

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: A mind-body oriented therapeutic approach that helps release the stress and trauma locked in the nervous system, allowing you to move past chronic states of fight, flight, or freeze.

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: Internal Family Systems helps you explore and heal different internal "parts" of your personality—such as defensive, anxious, or wounded parts—to cultivate self-compassion and inner harmony.

• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy focuses on processing difficult emotional experiences in real-time alongside a supportive therapist, fostering rapid healing through deep emotional connection.

• Clinical Hypnosis (Hypnotherapy): A therapeutic technique that uses guided relaxation and focused attention to access the unconscious mind, helping to uncover deep-seated patterns and reinforce positive behavioral changes.

In addition, I am an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFT) and Certified Sex Therapist.

Contact Me
To explore more or to make an appointment, contact me:

🌐 Visit My Website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

✉️ Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

📞 Call: (917) 742-2624 (during standard business hours)

Relationships: What's the Difference Between Stonewalling and the Silent Treatment?

I wrote about stonewalling in a prior article (see my article: Are You a Stonewaller?).

In the current article I'm focusing on the difference between stonewalling and the silent treatment.

What is the Difference Between Stonewalling and the Silent Treatment?

Although stonewalling and the silent treatment might appear to be similar, they are different in certain key aspects as outlined below.

Stonewalling and the silent treatment are both forms of unhealthy communication. They both involve communication patterns where a person withdraws from a conversation (see my article: Understanding a Partner Who Withdraws Emotionally).

Stonewalling vs the Silent Treatment

Stonewalling usually occurs when one person feels overwhelmed and withdraws from the conversation.

The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse where one person deliberately ignores, avoids or withdraws from communication to punish, control or manipulate the other person.

Here are the key differences between stonewalling and the silent treatment:

• Intent
• Duration
• Impact

Stonewalling

• Intent: To avoid conflict and feeling emotionally overwhelmed

• Behavior: Turning away, avoiding eye contact, shutting down the conversation or giving non-committal responses

• Duration: Usually temporary--lasting until the person no longer feels overwhelmed

Silent Treatment

• Intent: To punish, control or manipulate the other person

• Behavior: Prolonged withdrawal from communication, often accompanied by ignoring, avoiding or giving cold or hostile responses

• Duration: Lasting hours, days, weeks or more

The Key Differences

• Intent: Stonewalling is a defensive reaction whereas the silent treatment is intentional.

• Purpose: Stonewalling is aimed at avoiding conflict and the silent treatment is used to inflict emotional pain, gain power or manipulate.

• Duration: Stonewalling is usually temporary and the silent treatment can be prolonged.

• Impact: Stonewalling can damage a relationship by creating emotional distance and mistrust, while the silent treatment, which is intentional, can cause significant emotional distress to the person being ignored and potentially ruin or end a relationship.

An Example of Stonewalling

Whenever John and Alice got into an argument, John would feel so overwhelmed he would turn away and go into another room to calm himself. But since he didn't tell Alice that he felt overwhelmed, she would pursue him into the other room to continue the argument. This only made John feel even more overwhelmed so that he would withdrew even further, which angered Alice even more so she would try harder to get him to talk (see my article: Understanding a Partner Who Pursues Emotionally).

Stonewalling

As his feelings of overwhelm escalated, John would leave the house and to go for a walk. After he calmed down, he came back and told Alice he was ready to resume their conversation. By then, Alice had calmed down too, so they were able to have a calm discussion. After several months of this communication pattern, Alice insisted that they go to couples therapy to learn how to communicate in a healthy way. In couples therapy John learned that he would stonewall because he felt too overwhelmed to speak, which helped Alice to feel empathetic. Alice learned she had a fear of being abandoned, which made her pursue John. Over time, they learned how to communicate in a healthier way in couples therapy.

An Example of the Silent Treatment

Alex was hurt and angry when Sara said she was going out with her friends on a Sunday afternoon instead of spending time with him. Even though she had told him in advance that she and her friends planned to have brunch to celebrate one of her friend's birthdays, Alex felt that she was putting her friends above him. On most mornings Sara and Alex would sit and talk together in the kitchen and have coffee together. So, when Sara noticed that Alex didn't come into the kitchen at the usual time, she looked for him and she found him in the living room playing a game on his phone. Alex saw Sara come into the living room, but he ignored her and he didn't look up when she tried to talk to him. He sat in stony silence looking hurt and angry.

The Silent Treatment

No matter what she said, Sara couldn't get his attention so she got dressed to meet her friends. As she was leaving, she said goodbye to Alex, but he didn't respond. During her brunch with friends, Sara texted Alex to say she understood he felt hurt and she wanted to talk about it when she got home. But Alex ignored Sara's texts. He continued to ignore Sara for the next week, which was painful for her. Whenever she tried to initiate a conversation, he walked out of the room. Finally, at her wit's end, Sara gave Alex an ultimatum: Either he agree to attend couples therapy with her or he would move out her apartment. After another week of the silent treatment, Sara packed Alex's things, changed the locks and put his belongings on her doorstep.  Two weeks later, Alex called Sara reluctantly and told her he would attend couples therapy. Their couples therapist recommended that they both attend individual therapy. Alex learned in couples therapy that he used the silent treatment because he didn't know how to communicate his emotions and he wanted to punish Sara. The work in couples therapy was neither quick nor easy but, over time, Sara and Alex learned to communicate more effectively. Alex also realized in his individual therapy that he learned to give the silent treatment by observing his parents when he was a child. They would go days and weeks without talking to each other. Alex made a promise to himself and to Sara that he didn't want to repeat the mistakes his parents made in their relationship.

Summary

Both stonewalling and the silent treatment are unhealthy ways of communicating, but their intent, purpose and duration are different. 

Stonewalling is a maladaptive way of trying to cope with feeling emotionally overwhelmed.

The silent treatment, which is a form of emotional abuse, is used to inflict emotional pain, try to gain power or manipulate a partner.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Whether one or both of you engage in stonewalling or the silent treatment, you could both benefit from getting help in couples therapy (see my article: Tips on How to Get the Most Out of Couples Therapy).

Get Help in Couples Therapy

Rather than continuing to damage your relationship, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who can help you to overcome your communication problems so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified 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.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

In my prior articles, Seeing Yourself as "Independent" vs. Feeling Shame For Feeling Like a Burden and Seeing Yourself as "Rational" vs. Feeling Shame For Not Being Able to Feel, I discussed how people often use pride-based defense mechanisms to ward off deeper problems. 

Continuing with the theme of pride-based defense mechanisms, I'm focusing on the defense used by people who see themselves as loners vs. the deeper issue of feeling that they don't belong.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

Before I go on, I want to emphasize that the ability to be alone is an important psychological development, so I'm not saying that enjoying solitude is a problem (see my article: On Being Alone).

I am referring to people who defensively ward off deeper feelings of being an outsider or not belonging and who label themselves as a loner in order not to deal with those deeper, more problematic feelings that involve shame.

Of course, like most other things, being a loner is on a continuum, and different people who identify themselves as loners can mean different things.  There are loners who do have close relationships, but there is often a wariness of getting too close to people.

Like the people who take on the other pride-based identifications, like being "independent," which is really a pseudo-independence, and people who pride themselves as being "rational" when, in reality, they have problems with certain emotions that are unpleasant for them (like anger and sadness), people who take on the pride-based identification of being a loner often develop this defense mechanism at an early age as a way to cope with difficult family dynamics.

Most people, who use being a loner as a defense mechanism against feeling a chronic sense of not belonging, don't know that they're using a defense mechanism because the defense mechanism is unconscious.  In addition, they usually don't attend psychotherapy, except when other issues interfere with their lives or when they get an ultimatum from someone important in their life.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging
The following fictional vignette is typical of the dynamics which I've discussed above and illustrates how the pride-based identification of being a loner defends against a chronic sense of not belonging:

Ron
Ron, who was in his early 30s, came for a psychotherapy consultation after his mother moved away from New York City to live in Florida and he began to feel like "something was missing" from his life.  He never thought he would ever come for a psychotherapy consultation.  Although he wasn't convinced that psychotherapy would help him, he thought he would "give it a try" and he hoped to discover in therapy what might be missing for him.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

Ron told his  psychotherapist that he prided himself on being a loner.  Generally, he liked to spend time by himself, but when his mother lived in New York City, he liked to visit her every week or so to touch base with her.

When his psychotherapist asked Ron about his father and siblings, he said he was raised as an only child, and his father left the household when he was 12.  He had no contact with his father since that time.  Prior to that, he said, his father was emotionally and physically abusive with both his mother and him.  He recalled that when he was a young child of four or five, his father used to berate him and tell Ron that he wasn't his biological child.  He even threatened to put Ron in foster care.

When Ron was 12, he came home from school and found his father packing his things.  His last words to Ron were, "You're a loser and you're no son of mine," which was extremely painful for Ron.  

Later that day, he found out from his mother that the father told her he was moving in with his mistress of several years.  The father also told her that he had two younger sons with this woman, and that he planned to remain with them.  Until then, the father's mistress and his other children had been a secret (see my article: Toxic Family Secrets).

As a result, Ron grew up feeling inadequate.  As a child, he often wondered if he was really adopted and neither parent wanted to tell him.  He reasoned that this would explain why his father was so abusive towards him and told him that he wasn't his son.

But when he was older, his mother showed him his birth certificate which indicated that she and Ron's father were his birth parents.  But as a teenager, Ron continued to feel that he wasn't good enough because he believed that if he was good enough, his father would have stayed.  He never met his younger half-brothers, but he imagined that, unlike him, they were everything that his father wanted as sons.

He told his therapist that he considered himself to be a very spiritual person, and he would sometimes spend hours meditating or praying.  Aside from his mother, he identified God as being his primary emotional support.  He felt that God was always there, never abandoned him, and never let him down.

When he was in high school, he had very good grades, but he had some disciplinary problems for getting into fights.  He was evaluated by the school psychologist, who ruled out Asperger's or any other psychological disorders.  The school psychologist recommended that Ron's mother take him to see a child therapist to deal with the trauma related to the abuse, witnessing domestic violence and the father leaving the household, but his mother told Ron that she didn't think he needed therapy.  She didn't believe in therapy.  She was a religious woman, and she told Ron to pray instead.

Ron had a few buddies that he hung out with when he was in college, but he had little contact with them after college graduation, except for occasionally interactions on Facebook.  There were a few buddies that he hung out with occasionally to watch sports, but he didn't consider them to be close friends. These were people that Ron grew up with in his neighborhood.

There were two colleagues at work that he interacted with occasionally but, as a web designer who mostly worked from home, he tended to spend most of his work hours by himself, which suited him.

He had never been in a serious relationship.  Occasionally, he met women at online, but these relationships were mostly sexual and didn't last long.

Since his mother moved away, he began thinking that he might like to be in a relationship that was more than just sexual.  He was thinking that he might like the companionship, as long as the woman he was with gave him his "space" and didn't expect him to attend too many social gatherings.

By the end of the consultation, when Ron told the psychotherapist that he would like to come to therapy about once a month, she told him that psychotherapy sessions were usually weekly and, if he only came once a month, his progress would be very slow.  Reluctantly, Ron agreed to "try" weekly therapy sessions.

After hearing his family history, Ron's therapist recognized that Ron had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma that he was defending against.  She also sensed that, despite his saying that he prided himself on being a loner, he was deeply lonely and didn't realize it.  She knew she would have to wait until Ron was ready to broach these issues with him.

Initially, Ron was somewhat aloof with his psychotherapist.  He would talk about his attempts to date.  He said he was comfortable while the contact was online, but when he had to meet a date in person, he felt very self conscious and awkward.  Most of the time, he couldn't wait until the date was over.

But, recently, he met someone new that he really liked, a woman named Cathy, and he wanted to see her again.  He also sensed that she was interested in him.

From then on, Ron's therapy sessions were about how inadequate he felt as a man when he was around Cathy.  As a teenager, he always hoped that he would become an honest man, a man with integrity, and not an "abusive philanderer like my father."  But he also feared that he might grow up to be just like his father, which filled him with dread.

Since he met Cathy, he was surprised that he wanted to spend more time with her and that, beyond their sexual relationship, which was good, he enjoyed her company.

When she asked him to meet her friends at her best friend's birthday party, he felt hesitant because he didn't like hanging out with groups of people, but he knew it was important to Cathy, so he went.  He felt more like an observer than a participant at the party, but he also met a couple of people he thought were interesting.

In the meantime, Ron was feeling more comfortable in his weekly therapy sessions.  Over time, he allowed himself to develop a good working alliance with his psychotherapist, and he opened up more in therapy.

After Ron and Cathy were dating for almost a year, they were talking about moving in together.  Cathy initiated the discussion a few months before her apartment lease was up.  Ron knew this would be the next step in developing their relationship, but he felt deeply ambivalent about living with Cathy.

On the one hand, he would like spending more time with her.  But, on the other hand, he worried that she might not give him enough "space."  He also worried that, if she got to know him more intimately, she might get to know "the real me" and she might not like him (see my article: Overcoming the Fear That People Wont Like You If They Knew the "Real You").

This led back to the discussion about Ron feeling inadequate, and his psychotherapist recognized that Ron was now ready to talk about his earlier memories of feeling inadequate in his family.  So, after a few discussions about trauma therapy, his therapist recommended, and Ron agreed, that they use EMDR therapy to work on his unresolved childhood trauma, which was at the root of his current feelings of being inadequate (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy? and How Does EMDR Therapy Work: EMDR and the Brain).

During that time, Ron and Cathy began living together in his apartment.  Before they moved in, they talked about what they each needed from each other to make things work.

Ron explained to Cathy that he liked to spend some time alone because this was important to him.  Cathy said she also had hobbies that she liked to pursue, so she didn't mind if Ron had his alone time.  She also talked about how important it was to her to have open communication with Ron about how things were going as they began living together.  This made Ron feel uncomfortable because he had never had such an emotionally intimate romantic relationship before, but he agreed to try it.

As Ron worked on his unresolved childhood trauma in therapy, he began to realize how much shame he experienced as a child because he felt inadequate and like an outsider in his own family.  He realized that he never felt like he belonged anywhere--not at home, not at school or in college, not at work, and not with his buddies (see my article: Feeling Like an Outsider).

He recognized the only people he didn't feel like an outsider with was his mother, Cathy and his psychotherapist.  He began to see how it was related to his unresolved trauma.

Over time, Ron worked through his childhood trauma in therapy.  As he did, his interactions with others became more relaxed.  He still liked his alone time, but now he was able to actually enjoy being around people rather than just tolerating their company.

He realized that this was what had been missing from his life, before he came to therapy and before he began his relationship with Cathy, were meaningful relationships with people.

His fear that Cathy would get to know him better and not like him dissolved as their relationship deepened.  They were even talking about getting married.

Ron began remembering some good times with his father, despite the abuse and abandonment, and told his therapist that he was surprised that these memories were coming back to him.  She told him that EMDR therapy might have opened up these other memories that he suppressed after his father left the household.

Ron became curious about his father and, with much trepidation, Ron contacted him.  He was surprised that his father was happy to hear from him, and they agreed to meet each other for coffee to talk.  That meeting was the first of many where Ron and his father began reconciling their relationship.

Ron found out things he never knew about his father, including how his father was severely abused by his own father as a child.  His father apologized to him for the physical and emotional abuse and for leaving Ron when he was a child.  Ron wasn't sure that he would ever feel comfortable enough to meet his father's new wife, the woman that his father left his mother for when Ron was a child.  But he was willing to keep an open mind about it for the future.

Conclusion
Identifying as a loner is often a defense for people who are unconsciously warding off deeper feelings of feeling like they don't belong.

As I mentioned before, an ability to be alone and enjoy your own company is an important developmental step, and not everyone who enjoys solitude identifies as a loner or falls into this category.

For people who have the deeper issue of warding off shame for feeling inadequate, the defense mechanism of identifying themselves as loners suppresses these painful feelings.

Most of the time, people with this problem never come to therapy.  Those who do come to therapy often come because they feel something is missing in their lives or a spouse or boss tells them to get help because there are problems in their relationship or at work.

When people with these issues come to therapy, psychotherapists must wait until these clients form a solid therapeutic relationship with them before doing trauma therapy or they will risk alienating these clients and also risk these clients leaving therapy prematurely (see my article: When Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely).

There is usually unresolved trauma at the root of these problems, and talk therapy usually isn't enough to resolve the problem.  A more experiential trauma therapy, like EMDR, is more likely to help clients to resolve a traumatic history  (see my article: EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

Getting Help in Therapy
There are some emotional problems are too complex to resolve on your own.  You need the help of a licensed mental health professional (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Finding the psychotherapist who is right for you might involve having consultations with a few therapists until you feel comfortable (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you have resolved the problems that have kept you stuck, you can free yourself from a traumatic history and live a more fulfilling life.

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 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.