What is Self Reflective Awareness and Why Is It Important For You?

The capacity for self reflective awareness is an essential life skill to develop for yourself and for your relationships with others (see my article: What is Self Awareness?).

Developing Self Reflective Awareness

What Are the Signs of Low Self Reflective Awareness?

The following are some of the most common signs of low self reflective awareness:

• A Problem With Emotional Vulnerability: Emotional vulnerability is essential for your overall mental health, self compassion and empathy for others, open communication with your loved ones and the ability express your emotions, including emotions that might be difficult to express. If you see emotional vulnerability as being "weak", you're going to have a hard time connecting with your internal world and with others (see my article: Emotional Vulnerability as a Pathway to Intimacy in Relationships).

Emotional Vulnerability as a Pathway to Intimacy

• An Inability to Admit to Mistakes: If you have problems reflecting on your thoughts, feelings and behavior, you have problems with self awareness which can lead to an inability to admit to mistakes. Instead, you blame others for mistakes you have made. This often occurs due to fear and insecurity (see my article: Having the Courage to Admit You Made a Mistake).

An Inability to Admit to Mistakes

• A Tendency to Criticize Others: Along with an inability to admit mistakes, if you have low self reflective awareness, you might have a tendency to criticize others instead of looking at how you might have contributed to the problem.  Being hypercritical might make you feel better in the moment, but it usually comes at the expense of the people you're criticizing. This often leads to impaired relationships where resentment builds up and problems become more difficult to resolve. Equally important: It also comes at the expense of self awareness because you're too busy externalizing your problems (see my article: Improve Communication in Your Relationship By Eliminating the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse).

• A Problem Making Decisions: If you lack self reflective awareness, you might be indecisive because you're unable to reflect on what would be best for you and your loved ones. You might avoid making decisions because you feel insecure and you fear being judged or criticized. Instead of assessing your options, you might just accept whatever you're feeling at the moment ("I don't feel like going to work today, so I won't go"). Aside from a lack of self awareness, there's no critical thinking about the consequences of your behavior.

Problems Making Decisions

• A Problem Understanding Your Feelings: Without self awareness, you probably have a problems understanding your feelings. You also might not be comfortable with your feelings, especially if you got the message when you were growing up that feelings are dangerous. You might not be able to distinguish between feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, shame, fear, happiness or disgust. Instead, your feelings might be value . You might only be able to say things like, "I feel bad" which is too vague to help you understand what's happening to you or to be able to communicate how you feel to others. In addition, if you lack self awareness, you might assume that just because you feel bad that means things are bad. In other words, a person with self reflective capacity, can step back from their feelings to assess what's going on. They can identify their feelings and think about why they're feeling that way instead of assuming that a "bad feeling" means things are bad (see my article: Your Thoughts and Feelings Aren't Facts).

• Ruminating About the Past: Without self awareness, you can easily fall into a pattern of constantly dwelling on the past--your mistakes, other people's mistakes, what might have been and so on (this is different from when someone is stuck in unresolved trauma where their mind keeps going round and round about what happened as part of a trauma response). When you ruminate about the past (when it wasn't traumatic) and you don't have self awareness, you don't have the ability to observe and challenge yourself. Being aware of your rumination helps you to stop and reach a level of acceptance about the past so you can move on.

Dwelling on the Past and Worry About the Future

• Worrying Unproductively About the Future: If you lack self awareness, you might have a tendency to be a chronic worrier about the future. You might also be unaware of the anxiety and stress you're causing yourself by worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. Without the ability to step back and observe how you think, feel and behave, you just reinforce your habit of worrying without getting curious about why you're doing it. 

Why is Self Awareness Important?

Everyone could benefit from improving their self awareness.  But if you're having problems similar to what I have described in this article, you have a problem.

Self Awareness is Part of Emotional Intelligence

Self awareness is an essential part of emotional intelligence which helps you to know yourself and build and maintain healthy relationships with others.

When you're self aware, you have the capacity to identify and learn from your mistakes which allows you to grow, learn new skills and develop resilience.

Next Article

In my next article, I'll discuss how to develop self reflective awareness.

Getting Help in Therapy

One of the most common reasons why people seek help in therapy is because they realize they're not self aware. They don't know how they feel and they're having problems in their relationships.

Getting Help in Therapy

It's also not unusual for someone to seek help in therapy because a partner is complaining. 

Even though the client might not be internally motivated at first, they often develop the curiosity and motivation to change. 

If you're struggling to understand yourself and others, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to become more self aware.

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

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), 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.

Why Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is Important For Your Relationship

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is important for maintaining relationships (see my article: How to Develop Emotional Intelligence.

The Importance of EQ in Your Relationship

In this article I'm focusing on why being emotionally intelligent is important in committed relationships.

Why is Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Important in Committed Relationships?

Let's start by understanding the characteristics of emotional intelligence.

As I mentioned in my prior article, emotional intelligence includes:

• Developing self awareness 
• Developing an awareness about your partner with empathy and emotional attunement
• Managing your emotions
• Picking up on social cues from your partner
• Maintaining long term relationships

Now, let's look at each component of emotional intelligence in terms of a committed relationship.

Developing Self Awareness and An Empathetic Awareness of Your Partner: 

Before you even enter into a committed relationship, a high level of EQ helps you to distinguish lust (or infatuation) from a intimate loving relationship (see my article: 7 Signs Your Relationship is Based on Lust and Not Love).

When you love someone, you're no longer focused on the thrill of the chase (see my article: 12 Telltale Signs You're in a Relationship With a Womanizer).

When you have self awareness, you know your strengths and challenges and where you need to improve for your personal growth. 

You also recognize how what you say and do impacts your partner emotionally, physically and mentally. 

The Importance of EQ in Your Relationship

You know how to express your feelings, including uncomfortable feelings, to your partner and you also know how to listen to your partner when they are telling you things that might be uncomfortable (see my article: Improving Communication in Your Relationship: How to Change a Pattern of Defensive Behavior).

You don't allow anger or resentment to fester because you know it will have an negative impact on your relationship. 

Through your active awareness and empathy, you're emotionally attuned to your partner, you understand the impact you have on your partner and where you might need to make changes. 

Your self awareness and emotional attunement to your partner allows you to assess what is and isn't working in your relationship and you're not afraid to deal with these issues with your partner to make changes.

Since you're aware that emotional vulnerability is esssential for emotional and sexual intimacy, you have a comfort level with your partner so you can express your vulnerable feelings (see my article: Emotional Vulnerability as a Pathway to Greater Emotional and Sexual Intimacy).

Managing Your Emotions

You're aware of your emotions. 

You know how to manage your emotions in a health way by neither suppressing your emotions, expressing them in an unhealthy way or by stonewalling.

The Importance of EQ in Your Relationship

You know when you might need to take a break from a discussion to calm yourself before you say or do things you'll regret. 

If you and your partner are stuck in a negative cycle, you're aware of your part in the cycle and you work towards making positive changes (see my article: Breaking the Negative Cycle in Your Relationship).

Picking Up on Social Cues From Your Partner

Picking up on social cues from your partner includes:

• Paying attention to your own and your partner's body language
• Understanding your partner's gestures
• Making eye contact with your partner
• Paying attention to your own and your partner's tone and pitch when you're speaking to each other

Developing a Comfort Level For Change in Your Relationship

Change can be difficult, but a healthy relationship requires change periodically.

The Importance of EQ in Your Relationship

Part of emotional intelligence is knowing when you and your partner need to make changes in the relationship and getting comfortable with working on those changes.

You're aware that for a relationship to thrive and grow, changes are often necessary.

Rather than avoiding change, your courage to make changes with your partner will help to keep the relationship healthy.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a skill you and your partner can learn.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

As a couple, if you have been struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in working with couples. See my article: What is Emotionally Focused Therapy For Couples (EFT)?

By working on your relationship with a skilled couples therapist, you can have a happier, more meaningful relationship.

About Me

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

With over 20 years of experience, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome the obstacles to their happiness.

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.

Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions With Experiential Therapy

I have been focusing on managing emotions and emotional intelligence in my last three articles (see my articles: How to Develop Emotional Intelligence, How to Manage Your Emotions Without Suppressing Them and Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions).  Those previous articles include self help techniques.  

Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions With Experiential Therapy

The current article focuses on how experiential therapy can help if self help techniques don't work for you (see my article: Experiential Therapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

What is Experiential Therapy?

Experiential therapy is a broad range of mind-body oriented therapies, which include:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE): Mind-Body Oriented Therapy: Somatic Experiencing

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Can Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs

• Parts Work (also known as Internal Family Systems, Ego States Therapy): How Parts Work Can Empower You

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy): What is AEDP?

• Hypnotherapy (also known as clinical hypnosis, hypnosis): What is Clinical Hypnosis?

Each of these modalities work in a different way, but what they all have in common is that they use the mind-body connection.

Rather than just talking about your problems in an intellectual way (as is usually the case in regular talk therapy), experiential therapy helps you to make the connection between your mind with your body to get to emotions that are often unconscious (out of your awareness).  

In that way, experiential therapy tends to be more effective than regular talk therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy).

Experiential therapy is also used to help clients to overcome emotional trauma, including shock trauma and developmental trauma.

How Does Experiential Therapy Help to Manage Emotions

Since all experiential therapy works with the mind-body connection, clients learn to identify and manage their emotions.

For instance, many people come to therapy with emotional blocks.  These blocks are often unconscious.  

Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions With Experiential Therapy

Emotional blocks often occur due to past negative experiences and unresolved emotions, including emotional trauma.

Once they are uncovered, these blocks usually involve negative feelings about the self.  Common examples are "I'm not good enough" or "I'm not lovable" or other similar feelings.

But since the blocks are often unconscious at the start of experiential therapy, clients are unaware of them at the start of them at first.  When they come to therapy, these clients might only have a vague sense that something is wrong, but they don't know what it is.

An experiential therapist attunes to clients and listens for the underlying unconscious roots to the problem.  She will also help clients to develop a felt sense of the problem by asking clients to feel the sensations related to the problem in their body (see my article: What is the Felt Sense in Experiential Therapy?).

Many clients can sense into their bodies to identify emotions, but many others can't.  When clients can't sense emotions in their body, an experiential therapist knows that this is part of the block and works in an empathetic way to help clients to develop this skill.

Clients who are unable to identify emotions often sense a difficult or uncomfortable sensation.  From there, the experiential therapist starts where the clients are at that point and helps clients to differentiate sensations into specific emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, contempt, shame, and so on.

Being able to detect emotions on an experiential level is different from having intellectual insight into these emotions.  It means actually feeling it as opposed to just knowing it in a logical way. 

This is an important distinction between regular talk therapy and experiential therapy because change occurs with the combination of intellectual insight and emotional awareness.

Clinical Vignette: Developing Skills to Manage Emotions With Experiential Therapy

The following clinical vignette which, as always, is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality is an example of how experiential therapy can help a client learn to identify and manage emotions as well as work through unresolved trauma:

Ed

After Ed's wife gave him an ultimatum to either get help in therapy or she would leave him and take their children with her, Ed began therapy with some ambivalence (see my article: Starting Therapy: It's Not Unusual to Feel Anxious or Ambivalent).

Ed told his therapist that he often yelled at their young children when he got upset and then regretted it later because it frightened them.  He said he tried various self help techniques, like trying to pause by taking a few breaths, but his emotions often overrode any attempts he made to keep from losing his temper.

Initially, Ed was unable to identify the emotions involved when he got upset. He just knew that he felt overwhelmed, but he couldn't identify the emotions involved.

His experiential therapist provided Ed with psychoeducation about experiential therapy and the mind-body connection.

Over time, she helped Ed to go back into a recent memory where he became upset with his children. She helped him to slow down so he could feel in his body what he was experiencing at the time.  

At first, Ed had difficulty detecting physical sensations or emotions in his body, so his therapist helped him to develop a felt sense of his experiences by using a technique known in hypnotherapy as the Affect Bridge (also known in EMDR therapy as the Float Back technique).

One of the emotional blocks they encountered occurred when Ed had a memory of himself at five years old when his father told him, "Big boys don't cry."  There were other times when his father scolded him when Ed got angry or when he made a mistake.  

As she listened to Ed's history with his father, his therapist realized that these experiences resulted in Ed numbing his emotions from an early age which was why he was having problems identifying his emotions.

Using Parts Work, his therapist helped Ed to develop compassion for his younger self.  He could look at his own five year old son and realize just how young he was when his father shamed him (see my article: Developing Curiosity and Self Compassion in Therapy).

Developing self compassion was an important part of Ed's therapy and, over time, feeling compassionate towards his younger self enabled Ed to get to the underlying emotions that had been numbed for many years.

Gradually, Ed was able to detect sadness when his throat felt constricted, anger when his hands were clenched and fear when his stomach was in knots (these are examples of how one particular person experiences these emotions and not universally true for every person).

As he continued to work in therapy on identifying and managing his emotions, Ed realized that when he got upset with his children, he was not only experiencing anger, he was also experiencing fear.  Fear was the underlying emotion at the root of his upset.

By then, Ed was curious enough to question why he felt fear when he was upset with his children. By sensing into his experience using the mind-body connection, Ed realized that fear was related to his childhood experiences with his father.  

He realized that he felt the same fear and sense of helplessness in the present that he experienced when he was a child (see my article: How Traumatic Childhood Fears of Being Helpless Can Get Triggered in Adults).

He realized that, although his father never said it directly, his father communicated to Ed that whenever Ed was sad or angry or made a mistake, Ed was allowing himself to be vulnerable to being ridiculed or worse.  

In other words, what was communicated to Ed was that so-called "negative emotions" or making a mistake was dangerous.  

This was a pivotal moment in Ed's therapy.  He realized that when his children made mistakes, which could mean making a mistake in their homework or getting an answer wrong, this sense of fear and vulnerability to danger were triggers that rose up in him without his awareness (see my article: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

Underneath his anger and fear, he sensed his intention to protect them, but instead of coming across as protective, he came across as harsh and critical, which was scaring them.

Once Ed learned to detect these emotions, he was able to stop himself from yelling at his children.  Having those physical cues he learned in experiential therapy allowed him to calm himself first so he could respond to his children more empathetically.

After he learned to manage his emotions, Ed worked on his unresolved childhood trauma with EMDR therapy so he was no longer triggered in this way.  

The work was neither quick nor easy, but once Ed worked through these issues, he no longer felt triggered.

Conclusion

Experiential therapy can help you to develop skills to manage your emotions.

Regular talk therapy can help you to develop intellectual insight into your problems, but problems often don't change with insight alone.  Change occurs on an emotional level.

This is an important distinction between talk therapy and and experiential therapy: With experiential therapy you can develop both insight as well as an emotional shift which enables you to make changes.

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, and I have helped many clients to manage their emotions and work through unresolved trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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

How to Manage Your Emotions Without Suppressing Them

Everyone experiences emotions. They are a normal part of everyday life whether you feel sad, angry, frustrated, happy, disappointed or any other emotion.

Although everyone expects to feel emotions, some people have problems regulating their emotions.  

How to Manage Your Emotions Without Suppressing Them

Often this is because they never learned emotional regulation.  But the good news is that you can learn to regulate your emotions by developing emotional regulation skills and strategies.

What is Emotional Regulation?

As I mentioned in my article,  How to Develop Emotional Intelligence, emotional intelligence involves:

• Developing self awareness
• Managing emotions
• Picking up on social cues
• Maintaining relationship

Emotional regulation is the ability to control the intensity of emotions.  With emotional regulation, not only do control the intensity of your emotions, but you also know how to express your emotions.

For many people this can be especially challenging with difficult emotions.  

Emotional regulation doesn't mean avoiding or suppressing emotions.  On the contrary, avoiding or suppressing emotions often makes them even more intense.

Emotional regulation is the extent to which you stay calm and collected when you experience difficult emotions.

People who have a high degree of emotional intelligence are good at regulating their emotions. They are aware of their internal experience as well as the experience of others.  

These people experience distressing emotions just like everyone else but, over time, they have developed emotional regulation skills and strategies so they can regulate their emotions.

What is Emotional Suppression?

Emotional suppression occurs when someone pushes uncomfortable emotions out of their awareness.  Rather than dealing with these emotions, a person who uses emotional suppression either distracts themselves or pushes these emotions down.

Some people suppress emotions by distracting themselves by watching TV, participating in online activities, watching pornography or other distracting activities.  

Others numb themselves emotionally by drinking excessively, using illicit drugs, overeating, gambling compulsively, overspending, engaging in sex compulsively and so on (see my article: Changing Maladaptive Coping Strategies That No Longer Work For You: Avoidance).

Why Do People Suppress Emotions?

Many people suppress uncomfortable emotions like anger, sadness, fear, disgust and contempt because they don't know how to manage them.

It's often the case that these people never learned to experience uncomfortable emotions when they were growing up.  Usually this is because they grew up in a household where their family discouraged any signs of discomfort around difficult emotions.  

Under healthy conditions, children learn to tolerate uncomfortable emotions in an age-appropriate way with the help of their caregivers.  

For instance, a child, who has to leave the park with her mother when it's time to go home, feels upset, but she is soothed by her mother (or father) so that the child's emotions don't become overwhelming.

Over time, this same child learns how to soothe herself, which is called self soothing so that she develops this emotional regulation skill over time.

But a child who has no one to soothe her or, worse still, is told, "Don't be a baby!" or "Stop crying!" or "You have no reason to be upset" doesn't learn how to regulate emotions. 

This is a form of childhood emotional neglect which is traumatic for the child (see my articles: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect? and Overcoming Your Unresolved Childhood Trauma).

That child suppresses her emotions because she's being told that these emotions are uncomfortable for the parents. This is the only way for this child to survive in a dysfunctional family where uncomfortable emotions are suppressed, numbed or expressed in inappropriate ways.

Emotional suppression becomes the way this child continues to deal with uncomfortable emotions when she becomes an adult.  This often results in problems in personal relationships as well as problems at work when she can't deal with uncomfortable feelings.

What Are Some of the Consequences of Emotional Suppression?

As previously mentioned, emotional suppression can also result in emotional numbing with alcohol, drugs and other forms of abuse which creates its own problems.

Emotional suppression can also result in medical problems due to the mind-body connection. This is because, even though the difficult emotions might be out of someone's conscious awareness, they're not gone.  So, it's possible to develop headaches, stomach problems, elevated blood pressure and other related medical issues.

There have also been studies that reveal that over time emotional suppression can shorten a person's lifespan.

The Benefits of Managing Your Emotions

It's important for your own well-being, your personal and work-related relationships, and your health to learn to manage your emotions.

Whether you do this on your own or you seek help in therapy, most people can learn to manage their emotions.

Next Article:

In my next article, I'll discuss useful strategies you can learn to manage your emotions.

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.

I have helped many clients to learn how to manage their emotions and overcome unresolved trauma (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 to Develop Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, attune to, and manage your emotions in healthy ways. 

When you have emotional intelligence, you're able to recognize your own emotional state as well as the emotional states of others.

Developing Emotional Intelligence

In many ways, emotional intelligence, or emotional quotient (EQ), is even more important than intelligence quotient (IQ) with regard to being attuned to yourself and others. When you're attuned to your own emotional state and the emotional states of those around you, you're more likely to build successful relationships in your personal life as well as in your career.

Emotional intelligence includes 

• Developing self awareness, 
• Managing emotions
• Picking up on social cues 
• Maintaining relationships

• Developing self awareness: When you're self aware, you recognize how your emotions affect your thoughts and behavior. You know your strengths and challenges and you feel confident.

• Managing your emotions: Part of emotional self management is being able to manage your emotions, thoughts and behaviors in a healthy way. You don't behave impulsively. You're able to take charge, when appropriate. You're able to keep your commitments. You're also able to adapt to changes in your environment, which is so important in our ever-changing world. 

• Picking up on social cues: Emotional intelligence enables you to pick up on social cues in your environment. You recognize your needs as well as the needs of those around you. You feel comfortable in most social situations. You also recognize the social dynamics in personal and work-related group settings.

• Developing and maintaining relationships: Emotional intelligence allows you to develop and maintain personal and work-related relationships, communicate well with others, influence people, manage conflict, and interact well in group settings. More than ever, businesses are now evaluating their employees on the basis of their emotional intelligence at work.

Ideally, emotional intelligence is a set of skills that you learn as you're growing up. However, depending upon your particular circumstances when you were growing up, you might not have learned to develop these skills. 

As a result, this could be causing significant problems in your personal and work-related relationships. 

But it's never too late to develop these skills, and many people come to therapy because they have had problems related to one or more areas where they lack emotional intelligence.

Clinical Vignette
The following scenario is a composite of many cases with all identifying information removed. This vignette illustrates how someone who has not developed emotional intelligence can learn to develop these skills in psychotherapy:

Bob:
Bob was a man in his early 30s. When he began psychotherapy, he had just received his annual performance review at his new company, and he was very disappointed to learn that his boss, Gregg, was not pleased with how Bob interacted with others at work. 

While Gregg praised Bob for his technical skills, he told Bob that he needed to improve how he interacted with his colleagues and senior management. He felt that Bob was too aloof and isolated at work, and he was not a "team player."

Gregg told Bob that this was not just his opinion--he had also received this feedback from Bob's peers and other managers at the company. He told Bob that his potential success at the company depended on Bob learning to develop emotional intelligence on the job. He recommended that Bob read Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence. 

Gregg also told Bob to consider getting emotional help to overcome whatever emotional barriers might be getting in Bob's way from forming good interpersonal relationships at work.

Bob was also experiencing difficulty forming personal relationships. He recognized that this was a lifelong problem, but he didn't know what to do about it. 

Whenever he tried to form personal relationships, whether they were friendships or romantic relationships, they never lasted beyond a brief period of time. This left Bob feeling very lonely and lacking in self confidence. He had a couple of buddies that he went with to sports events, but he didn't have any close relationships.

Bob often felt that there was "something missing" in him that caused him to have such difficulties in his relationships, but he didn't know what it was. 

Until his boss mentioned the term "emotional intelligence," Bob was completely unaware of this concept. But as he started reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, he realized that he lacked these interpersonal skills, and he very much wanted to develop them.

When Bob began psychotherapy, he had very little awareness of his emotional state at any given time. He grew up in a household where his parents demonstrated very little in terms of their own emotions, and they didn't talk about emotions at all. 

Education was very important to them, and they encouraged him to do well in school. When Bob's teachers told his parents that Bob had problems forming friendships, they dismissed this as unimportant. As long as Bob got excellent grades, they were happy and they told him not to be concerned about friendships.

Bob's therapist began by helping Bob to recognize his own emotions. When he started therapy, Bob had only the vaguest notion of his emotions. 

Generally, he recognized when he felt "good" or when he felt "bad," but he couldn't distinguish whether "good" meant that he felt content or elated or if "bad" meant that he felt sad or angry.

Bob's therapist helped Bob to distinguish his emotions based on what Bob was feeling in his body. 

For instance, he learned to recognize that when his stomach was clinched, he often felt fearful. He also learned to identify other emotions based on what he was feeling physically. Gradually, he began to distinguish fear from anger or sadness. He also recognized that sometimes he felt more than one emotion at a time, which was confusing to him at first.

Bob's therapist also worked with him to begin to pick up on social cues in his work environment. Prior to this, Bob didn't pay attention at all to the emotional environment at work. 

He was emotionally disconnected from the environment and from how his colleagues were feeling at any given time. 

Over time, working with his therapist, Bob began to learn how to read "body language" with individuals and at staff meetings. This helped him to negotiate his relationships at work. It also alerted him with regard to the appropriateness of timing and others' receptivity with regard to introducing new ideas.

In addition, he learned to take an interest in his coworkers. Prior to starting therapy, it never would have occurred to Bob to ask a coworker about his or her weekend or a vacation. 

After he began working with his therapist on developing emotional intelligence, Bob began taking his first tentative steps by engaging in conversation with coworkers. 

To his amazement, his coworkers began to take more of an interest in him as well. He discovered that several of his coworkers would go out for lunch on Fridays, and they started inviting him to come along, which pleased Bob.

He recognized that his coworkers were beginning to like him. While this was gratifying to Bob, he also began to feel the sadness of so many years of not having this in his life, and he realized that this was an important missing piece for him.

Socializing in his personal life was more of a challenge. Even though Bob was very lonely, he felt very awkward in social situations, and he tended to avoid them. 

He would often turn down invitations from his sports buddies to attend parties where he could have, potentially, made other friends or met a woman that he could date.

Although he was very anxious about getting out more, Bob was determined to overcome his fear. So, when an opportunity presented itself for him to attend a party, he accepted the invitation. He and his therapist had several sessions to talk about his anxiety and to work on how he could improve his interpersonal skills in these types of social situations. 

Even though he was starting to feel more comfortable socially with his colleagues, he was anxious about socializing on a personal level. He felt that, at least in his work environment, he could talk to his colleagues about work. But with new people where he did not have this in common, he felt very unsure of himself.

Bob and his therapist worked on various role plays where he practiced how to start a conversation in a social setting. They talked about all different types of scenarios and what social cues Bob should notice among those around him with regard to people's relative openness to engaging socially. 

They decided that it would be easier for Bob to start by asking the hostess to introduce him to some of the people at the party. They also decided that, to start, Bob didn't have to stay for the entire party if he was too uncomfortable, so they talked about how he could negotiate this socially with the hostess.

Fortunately for Bob, the hostess at this party was an emotionally astute woman. She recognized that Bob was anxious in social settings, and she started by introducing him to other people in his particular field of work. 

Although Bob was very nervous at first, once he began talking to these people, he felt more comfortable. One person confided in Bob that he also felt anxious at parties, and Bob felt relieved to know that he wasn't the only one who experienced social anxiety.

Working diligently with his therapist, over time Bob was able to develop emotional intelligence in his work environment and in social situations. But 

Bob also felt proud when Gregg approached him one day and told him that he was pleased to see that Bob had improved his interpersonal skills at work. 

This positive feedback motivated Bob to continue working on this issue in his therapy. 

In addition, Bob was starting to date women, and he was surprised and pleased to realize that there were women who liked him.

What Can You Do to Develop Emotional Intelligence?

If you're experiencing a lack of emotional attunement to yourself and to others, you could benefit from developing or improving your emotional intelligence skills.

Daniel Goleman is a psychologist who has done a lot of research on the topic of emotional intelligence. I recommend that you read his book, Emotional Intelligence.

While reading a book about emotional intelligence is a good start in terms of acquainting yourself with basic concepts, reading alone won't help you to develop emotional intelligence. 

Very often, it's helpful to also develop these skills in the context of your own personal therapy with a licensed psychotherapist who helps clients to overcome this problem.

Contrary to what you might think, you'll discover that you're not alone, and many people, who struggle with this issue, are able to develop these important skills to become more emotionally attuned to themselves and to others. 

You'll also discover that developing emotional intelligence will contribute to the success of your personal relationships and your career.

Getting Help in Therapy

Emotional intelligence is critical to maintaining relationships in all areas of your life.

You can learn to develop emotional intelligence by working with a licensed mental health professional.

Life is much more fulfilling when you are self aware, you can manage your emotions, pick up on social cues and maintain relationships.

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.

I have helped many clients to develop emotional intelligence so that they can lead more fulfilling lives.

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.

What is Emotional Hijacking?

The psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of emotional hijacking in the mid-1990s in his book, Working With Emotional Intelligence (see my article: Reacting to the Present Based on Your Traumatic Past).

What is Emotional Hijacking?

As a psychotherapist in New York City who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma, I see many clients who experience emotional hijacking based on unresolved trauma from the past (see my article: Understanding Why You're Affected By Unresolved Trauma From a Long Time Ago).

What is Emotional Hijacking?

So, let's start by defining this term.

An emotional hijack occurs when the part of the brain called the amygdala, which is an emotional processor, bypasses (or hijacks) your normal reasoning process.  

Although normally your decision making occurs in other parts of the brain, the amygdala takes over during certain circumstances (see my article: Trauma, the Triune Brain and Somatic Experiencing).

This can be a very good thing: If you're being chased by a tiger, you probably wouldn't survive if you had to rely on the logical part of your brain to reason out what you should do.  That would take too long when seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

So, when the amygdala takes over, you react without having to use the logical part of the brain and you run before you even realize that you're doing it.

But there are times when the amygdala reacts when you want the logical part of your brain to help you to pause and process the situation first.

Situations Where People Are Emotionally Hijacked

Here are some examples of people getting emotionally hijacked.  See if you can relate to any of these scenarios, which are based on composites of many different cases with all identifying information removed:

• Feeling Ignored and Invisible: Joe was trying to tell his wife, Betty, about his stressful day with a difficult colleague.  Normally, Betty is attentive and empathetic, but she was distracted by an email that popped up on her computer at home from her boss that needed an immediate response.  As a result, she was only half listening to Joe, which upset him. Without even thinking about it, Joe lashed out at Betty and said, "You never pay attention to me!" Joe was unaware that emotionally he was brought back to all the times when he was a small child and he tried to get his mother's attention, but she was too distracted by Joe's father, who was drunk.  At the point when Joe got emotionally hijacked in the present, he didn't realize he was reacting to unresolved trauma from the past.  But when he spoke to his therapist about it later on in the week, she explained the concept of emotional hijacking to him, and she helped him to understand the connection between the present situation with his wife and his unresolved trauma from the past.  He realized his reaction to his wife was out of proportion to the current situation, and he apologized to his wife. He also told his therapist he wanted to work on his unresolved trauma so he wouldn't continue to get emotionally hijacked (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

• Feeling Left Out and Unlovable: When Sue asked her close friend, Ann, to go to the movies, she felt hurt to hear that Ann already had other plans with her other friend, Tania.  Not only did Sue feel hurt, she also felt left out and unlovable.  As she walked home, she silently berated herself for even asking Ann to go to the movies. She said to herself, "Why did I even ask her? She obviously doesn't care about me or she would've included me in her plans with Tania.  What an idiot I am to believe she's a good friend of mine!"  During her next therapy session, Sue told her therapist about what happened.  Her therapist had heard many stories prior to this of Sue's good friendship with Ann, so she knew that Sue was reacting to the present based on her past experience as a child with an emotionally unavailable mother.  As her therapist reminded Sue about her long, close friendship with Ann and how loving and supportive Ann had been in the past, Sue realized that her thinking was distorted, and this was another situation where she was emotionally hijacked (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

• Feeling Powerless:  When Bill tried to return a defective laptop he bought the day before, he was turned away at the store by a brusque sales associate who told him that he couldn't, under any circumstances, replace it or give Bill his money back.  The original sales associate, who sold the laptop to Bill had told Bill that he had 90 days to return the laptop for any reason for either a replacement, a refund or store credit.  Bill even had a receipt that confirmed the store's policy.  But the current sales associate was rude and abrupt, and Bill felt powerless.  He didn't know what to say or do, so he left the store feeling confused.  Later that day when Bill spoke to his wife about the incident, she recognized Bill's familiar pattern of getting emotionally hijacked in similar situations.  She helped him to calm down so he could think more clearly about it.  When he was calmer, based on his work in therapy, Bill realized the sales associate's manner was similar to how his father used to berate him when Bill was a child.  He also realized he was reacting to the current situation as if he was living in the past.  The next day, Bill went back to the store and asked to speak with the sales manager, who was very apologetic for how Bill had been treated the day before and he refunded Bill his money (see my article: How Unresolved Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

The examples above represent only a few of the many situations where people get emotionally hijacked.  You can probably think of many others.

Conclusion

Emotional hijacking occurs when the emotional processor in the brain, the amygdala, reacts and bypasses the logical part of the brain so that you have an immediate response that is usually out of proportion to the current situation.

More times than not, your brain is reacting to memories from the past which are related to unresolved trauma.

People often realize, in hindsight, that they overreacted, but they might not realize why, especially if they're not in therapy.  

By then, they might feel ashamed for their overreaction. 

Over time, there is also the possibility of damaging important relationships if these overreactions keep happening.

My Next Articles

In my next blog article, I'll provide some tips on how to deal with emotional hijacking: Self Help Tips on Emotional Hijacking.

Also see my article: How Experiential Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Emotional Hijacking.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you recognize that you tend to get emotionally hijacked often under certain circumstances, you could benefit from getting help from a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Overcoming unresolved trauma with the help of a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area can free you from getting emotionally hijacked.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome psychological 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.