The Healing Potential of the Therapist's Empathic Attunement

In my prior article, I began discussing the therapist's emotional attunement in the therapy session.  In this blog article, I would like to continue to discuss emotional attunement by focusing on how the therapist's attunement to the client can be emotionally reparative.

The Therapist's Empathic Attunement

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases, will help to illustrate this point:

Jane
Jane grew up in a household where she was the youngest of 10 children.  Her mother worked cleaning people's apartments, and her father worked in a factory during the day and as a taxi driver at night.  Both of them were exhausted when they came home, and they relied on Jane's older sister, Ruth, to help them with the children and the household chores.

Jane was very different from her siblings.  While they liked to go out and play in the yard, she preferred to stay in and read books.  She loved using her imagination to make up stories and do artwork.  But Ruth, who was 12 years older than Jane, had little patience for Jane.  Ruth was often irritated and resentful that so much was expected of her and she became very impatient with Jane at times, especially when she thought Jane was "wasting time" playing, reading or drawing.

All of Jane's basic needs were taken care of in terms of having a roof over her head, food to eat, and clothing to wear.  But she often felt lonely in her home.

Jane had lots of fantasies about what she wanted to do when she grew up, but she had no one to talk to about it.  Her parents' attitude was that when she graduated high school, she should be happy to find a job, any job.  It didn't matter if she liked it or not.  Liking your work seemed like too big a luxury to Jane's parents.

So, when Jane decided to go to college, her parents and older siblings were flustered and confused.  None of them had gone to college and they couldn't see why she wanted to go.  Her parents warned her that they didn't have the money to send her, so she had to rely on scholarships and part time jobs throughout college.

When Jane graduated college, she was surprised that she didn't feel good about it.  She felt like something was missing, but she didn't know what it was.  

She knew, at least on an rational level, that graduating college was a significant accomplishment. But she didn't feel it.  Her family came to her graduation, but they seemed self conscious, guarded and out of place.  Jane watched her friends' parents swell with pride about their children's graduation, and she wished her family could do the same.

Throughout her 20s, Jane continued to feel that something was missing inside of her, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.  So, when she was 24, she began therapy.

No one in Jane's family had ever been to therapy, and she didn't dare tell her family.  She knew they wouldn't approve of it and they would think she was wasting money.  They would never understand if she told them that she felt something was missing in her.  They would probably laugh and tell her she had too much time on her hands to think about herself.

Initially, Jane felt self conscious and anxious in therapy.  On some level, she felt she didn't deserve to be there:  Maybe her family was right--maybe therapy was an indulgence that was for other people, not someone like her.  Whenever she had these thoughts, she burned with shame.  And yet...she knew there was something of value for her in therapy.

The Therapist's Empathic Attunement

Over time, Jane began to sense that her therapist cared about her and wanted to hear about what she felt.  At first, this was uncomfortable because Jane wasn't accustomed to this.  When she was growing up, she would normally keep her thoughts and feelings to herself.  Or, she would write stories about young girls like herself, never quite realizing at the time that she was writing about herself.

During the first few months of therapy, Jane felt ambivalent about the therapy process.  On the one hand, she was grateful to have a place where she could speak uninterrupted and have the therapist's undivided attention.  It was a new experience for Jane to be heard in this way.

On the other hand, Jane felt a deep hurt because she realized what she was missing when she was growing up.  As a child, she never allowed herself to feel the pain of the emotional deprivation.  But she felt it now and it made her feel very sad.

One day, when she was feeling particularly undeserving, Jane decided to make up an excuse about not being able to afford therapy.  This wasn't true because Jane had very good out of network benefits that paid for 70% of her therapy.  

But Jane couldn't bring herself to tell her therapist that she felt she didn't deserve all this attention.  So, at the next therapy session, she went in looking outwardly cheerful and confident and told her therapist that she had to end therapy because she could no longer afford to come.

Jane was especially good, even with her close friends, at convincing people that she was happy even when she felt very sad.  She had a lot of experience pretending that she was okay when she really wasn't.  

She was sure that she would convince her therapist.  But to Jane's surprise, her therapist, who was empathically attuned to Jane, mentioned that she sensed there was something else going on, and she wondered if Jane would be willing to discuss it.

What followed in that session was an emotional breakthrough for Jane and a breakthrough for her therapy.  Jane took an emotional risk and opened up.  She cried a lot during that session for everything she didn't get as a child and for how undeserving she felt now.  She spent many sessions after that one focusing on these issues while her therapist remained empathically attuned to her.

If Jane's therapist had not been empathically attuned, she might have accepted Jane's excuse on face value.  And Jane would have continued to feel emotionally deprived and undeserving. 

More than likely, this would have had consequences for both her personal life and her career. But, being empathically attuned, Jane's therapist sensed the underlying issues going on with Jane and let Jane know.

Overall, Jane's therapist's empathic attunement was an emotionally reparative experience for Jane.  It was the first time Jane felt genuinely cared about and understood in this way.

Empathic Attunement and Therapeutic Rapport
In order for there to be empathic attunement in psychotherapy, there needs to be a good fit between therapist and client.

A good fit means there is a rapport between the client and the therapist.  Often, this develops over time.  But when it doesn't  happen, when clients don't feel a rapport with the therapist, I recommend that they discuss it with their therapist.  And if it continues to be a problem, they can find a therapist where they can feel this rapport.

A good therapeutic relationship between client and therapist is one of the best predictors of a good outcome in therapy.  And, just like anything else, some therapists are more empathically attuned than others.

Getting Help in Therapy
No therapist is going to be 100% attuned all of the time.  Therapists are human.  But, overall, as the client, you deserve to have a therapist that you feel is empathically attuned to you most of the time.  As a client, the most important thing is to trust your instincts when choosing a therapist.

And if you're with a therapist, who is usually attuned to you, but who may have lapsed into an empathic failure by not hearing you or misunderstanding you in some way, your therapist might be unaware of it.  Tell her or him.  Often these kinds of situations in therapy can be repaired and it can lead to a breakthrough in therapy and an emotionally reparative experience for the client.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC 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.

Is Your Envy Ruining Your Relationships?

Envy is defined as the emotionally painful feeling you have when you perceive that someone has something that you want and don't have, whether it's a possession, an attribute, a relationship, a new baby, a job, and so on.  Envy is a complex emotion.

Is Your Envy Ruining Your Relationships?

There Are Degrees of Envy

Like any other emotion, there are degrees of envy.  A mild form of envy, for instance, might involve wishing a friend well for getting married, but wondering why she found happiness in a romantic relationship and you haven't.  Why does she get to have a wonderful husband while you're having difficulty meeting someone?  This is a more benign form of envy.  A more malicious form of envy might involve not only wishing that you could meet someone wonderful like your friend did, but also secretly hoping that her relationship fails.  There is a bitter and toxic quality to this form of envy that is corrosive to your sense of self as well as to maintaining relationships.

Your Envy Sets Up a Rivalry Between You and Others
When you feel envious of people close to us, you set up a rivalry between you and them, even if the rivalry remains in your mind and you never express it.  When you're envious, you see the other person as being luckier, better looking, more intelligent (or whatever other attributes you ascribe to the other person) than you.  This may or may not be realistic.  But whether or not it has objective reality often has little to do with envy.  In fact, if you're immersed in envious feelings, you might have already lost any objectivity in the matter because you're so focused on others.

Strong, Pervasive Feelings of Envy
When you experience pervasive feelings of envy, where you're constantly comparing yourself to others in an unfavorable way, you tend to see life most of the time in terms of what others have and you don't.  Your perspective is filtered through the lens of feeling that what you have is inadequate compared to others.  You tend to feel deprived most of the time and this can lead to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.

Pervasive Feelings of Envy Are Often Related to Childhood Deprivation
When envy is pervasive in most of your life, it often stems from early childhood deprivation, whether the deprivation was emotional, physical or both.  In these types of situations, you continue to feel the longings you felt when you were a child.  At that time, you deserved to be loved and taken care of but, for whatever reason, you were deprived instead.  Your longing to be nurtured was legitimate and real.

This type of longing usually doesn't disappear when you become an adult.  As an adult, this longing, which is "carried" emotionally by your inner child, usually manifests as envy.  When it's a pervasive feeling of envy, these feelings become distorted.  What is real for the deprived inner child becomes displaced on others in a distorted way when you become an adult.

Pervasive Envy Can Ruin Relationships
Pervasive envy can ruin relationships, including family relationships, marriages, friendships, and relationships with colleagues.  If you're constantly complaining to others that you feel they have better opportunities, relationships or possessions, it's a big turn off to them.  After a while, they'll feel guarded around you and might not want to be around you.  At best, they'll see you as petty and, at worst, they'll see you as someone who is too self centered to be around.  Chances are good that they won't understand that these pervasive feelings of envy come from earlier experiences.  And, even if they do, they still might not want to deal with your envy.

People who feel pervasive envy are often not aware that this is what they're feeling.  They usually believe that their feelings are objectively true and not a distortion.  In their eyes, other people are luckier, more attractive, and so on, than they are.  Their focus is on others and not on themselves.  It can be very painful to realize that these envious feelings are distortions in their minds.  But once they develop this awareness, there's an opportunity, if they're open to it, to change.

Envy Can Become a Self Perpetuating Pattern
Living with constant feelings of envy can be a self perpetuating pattern.  The more you feel it, the more intense the envy becomes.  There are people who live their entire lives comparing themselves unfavorably to others.  They take no responsibility to change what they don't like in their own lives because they're too immersed in feeling resentful towards others.  This creates an increasingly deep sense of unhappiness and bitterness.

Getting Help to Overcome Envy
If you're someone who is stuck in the rut of feeling envious towards others and you're so focused on what other people have that you don't, you owe it to yourself to get professional help from a licensed mental health professional.  Doing inner child work can help you to overcome envy and feel better about yourself.  In addition to preserving the important relationships in your life, you can also improve your sense of self and the quality of your life.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.  I have helped many clients to lead more fulfilling loves.

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:  Is Envy Ruining the Quality of Your Life?