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.

Trauma Therapy: Using the Container Exercise Between Therapy Sessions

Processing unresolved trauma with a skilled trauma-informed psychotherapist can be one of the most healing things that you do for yourself.  Over time, unresolved trauma can have detrimental emotional and physical effects.  It can also have unintended repercussions for your children (see my article: Your Unresolved Trauma Can Have Repercussions For Your Children).  

Although working through psychological trauma is beneficial for you and your family, you need to know how to take care of yourself between your psychotherapy sessions, which is why I'm discussing the container exercise in this article (see my article: Is Self Care Selfish?).

Using the Container Exercise Between Psychotherapy Sessions

Why is the Preparation Stage of Trauma Therapy Important?

The concept of emotional containment is very important when you're working on psychological trauma in therapy because processing trauma doesn't stop when you leave your psychotherapist's office.  It continues between sessions, sometimes consciously and often unconsciously.

Having a way to cope with whatever comes up between therapy sessions is essential and, hopefully, your psychotherapist has taken time in the preparation phase of trauma therapy to teach you various coping skills to deal with whatever comes up when you're not in therapy (see my article: Developing Internal Resources and Coping Strategies).

In my opinion as a trauma therapist, some therapists rush too quickly to process the trauma before they have helped clients with the necessary preparation work.  This tends to occur with psychotherapists who might have been trained to do trauma work a long time, before there was less of an emphasis on preparation, and they haven't updated their skills.

Also, some therapists want to respond to clients' demands that they start processing trauma immediately before clients are emotionally prepared to do the work. While it's understandable that clients want relief from the effects of unresolved trauma as soon as possible, trauma therapists need to explain why it's important to help clients prepare to do the work and assess a client's readiness.

Clients who aren't sufficiently prepared during the preparation phase of trauma therapy are often overwhelmed by processing their trauma.  If they haven't gone through the preparation phase of trauma therapy, they often don't have the skills to cope with the emotions that come up.

The worst part is that some clients, who aren't sufficiently prepared and who feel overwhelmed in trauma therapy, leave prematurely and they might be too afraid to see another trauma therapist (see my article:  When Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely).

What is the Container Exercise?

The container exercise is one way to cope with difficult emotions that come up between psychotherapy sessions.

This exercise can also be used at the end of a trauma therapy session.  In a prior article, I discussed other helpful coping strategies that might be useful to you.

The container exercise is a simple yet powerful coping strategy where you use your imagination to create a container to temporarily place any disturbing thoughts, feelings, memories, images, physical sensations, dreams or whatever is disturbing to you so that you don't feel overwhelmed until your next psychotherapy session.

Some people like to imagine that their container remains in their psychotherapist's office so that they leave whatever comes up that's disturbing with their therapist until the next time. Where you decide to imagine your container is up to you.  Choose a place that feels right.

Steps For Doing the Container Exercise

The following steps are part of the basic container exercise and you can enhance them in whatever ways feel meaningful to you:

• Begin by taking a few deep, cleansing breaths and, if it feels comfortable for you, close your eyes.  If closing your eyes doesn't feel comfortable, you can focus on a particular spot on the floor so that your attention doesn't wander.

• Now imagine a safe and secure container of whatever type, size, color feels right for you. Take whatever time you need to make this personally meaningful and decide where you want to imagine keeping it.

• Imagine yourself placing whatever is disturbing you in this container.

• Imagine yourself shutting the container and making it secure in whatever way feels right to you (e.g., locking it, locking it and burying it underground or in the ocean, etc).

• If anything else comes up that's disturbing to you during the week, you can place it in your container until you're ready to talk to your therapist about it at your next session.

Conclusion

The preparation phase of trauma therapy is an important part of getting ready to do trauma work so that you don't feel overwhelmed.  

Some clients need more time in the preparation phase than others.  This is something that your psychotherapist will assess before you process trauma.

The container exercise is one way to deal with anything disturbing that comes up between psychotherapy sessions.  It can also be used at the end of a trauma session to help you to de-stress.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with a skilled trauma therapist who can help you to overcome your trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

There is no quick fix for overcoming trauma, especially developmental trauma, but a skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome trauma with safe and effective trauma therapies, including:  

• EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Parts Work

• Clinical Hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples, and I specialize in helping clients to overcome both shock trauma and developmental trauma.

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

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

Managing Your Emotions During Stressful Times

Managing our emotions during stressful times can be challenging.  There are many situations where managing emotions can be challenging:

Family Stressors Can Challenge Our Ability to Manage Our Emotions
Family-related stress can also challenge our ability to contain our emotions.  For instance, a friend, Lisa (not her real name) was recently telling me how she was dreading an upcoming visit from her mother-in-law.  According to Lisa, her mother-in-law is constantly giving unsolicited advice to Lisa on just about everything--cooking, childrearing, bargain hunting, you name it.

Managing Your Emotions During Stressful Situations

Lisa is afraid she won't be able to manage her anger about what she feels is subtle criticism from her mother-in-law.  It doesn't matter what topic they're discussing, according to Lisa, her mother-in-law is a self-proclaimed expert.  Lisa says she has tried in subtle and tactful ways to tell her mother-in-law that they each seem to have their own ways of doing things.  But Lisa says her mother-in-law still insists that she knows the "right way" and she doesn't let up.  Lisa says that whenever this happens, her husband suddenly has "selective hearing" and tunes his mother out, leaving Lisa to deal with her on her own.

Learning to Contain and Manage Our Emotions is a Skill
Learning to contain and manage our emotions is a skill.  We learn this skill over time from the time we're children.  Infants want what they want and they want it now.  They haven't developed the skills to manage their emotions.

Under favorable circumstances, parents are attuned to their child and respond in optimal ways so that the child gets what s/he needs and learns, over time, that they're not always going to get what they want, like a new toy or being allowed to stay up late on a school night.  Children often test the limits with their parents and parents need to learn to set limits in a reasonable way.  Over time, under optimal circumstances, children learn how to tolerate reasonable amounts of frustration, so that when they're adults, they're not reacting emotionally whenever they get upset.

In successful therapy, psychotherapy clients learn to develop a greater capacity for emotional containment so that they can manage their emotions with a degree of self control.  Containment is different from stifling our feelings.  When you stifle your feelings, you're suppressing your emotions.  Rather than acknowledging and containing your emotions, you're pushing them down.  If this is your usual pattern, you risk developing a psychophysiological disorder (e.g., migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, body aches, etc) because the emotions remain stored in the body and can create physical problems.

When you contain your emotions, you're not disavowing them.  On the contrary, your acknowledging and observing your emotions in a mindful way, but you're able to manage them.  Hopefully, if you frequently find yourself in situations where you have to contain your emotions (like, dealing with a difficult boss), you have other outlets, whether this is going to the gym, doing yoga, journaling, or talking to supportive friends.

But none of us are perfect, and even the most tolerant, emotionally mature and flexible person can lose it during stressful times.  If this isn't a usual pattern, all we can do during those rare occasions is forgive ourselves and make amends with whoever was affected by our inability to manage our emotions.  Needless to say, I'm not talking about extreme behaviors like physical violence.

There was a time when people were encouraged to express their anger and other unpleasant feelings as a form of catharsis.  Now we know that allowing ourselves to yell, scream and carry on, as a way to let go of our negative emotions, is actually unhealthy.  It might feel good at the moment (for you, but not for those around you), but it does nothing in terms of teaching you how to manage your emotions and develop emotional maturity.  On the contrary, it's more like allowing yourself to have a temper tantrum similar to a two year old.

Stressful times, whether it's the stress of the holidays or the stress of difficult in-laws, tests our ability to   be emotionally mature in terms of how we handle ourselves.  Rather than letting lose with a temper tantrum, it's much more healthy for you and those around you to take a deep breath, go for a walk, tell yourself "this too shall pass" or whatever works to help you manage and contain difficult emotions.

In the long run, you build greater resilience if you learn to develop the important skill of emotional containment.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Exeriencng 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 regular business hours or email me.