How Experiential Psychotherapy Can Facilitate Emotional Development in Adult Clients

In prior articles, I've discussed experiential psychotherapy and how it helps clients in therapy to overcome emotional problems, including:

• Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind

• What's the Difference Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Psychotherapy?

• Using Somatic Psychotherapy When the Client Has No Words to Describe the Problem

• Why Experiential Psychotherapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone

How Experiential Psychotherapy Can Facilitate Emotional Development

In this article, I'm focusing on how experiential psychotherapy can facilitate emotional development in adult clients who who grew up in childhood homes where there was no one to share and help process emotional experiences.

Tracking Clients' Emotional Expression During the Psychotherapy Sessions 
A psychotherapist who practices experiential psychotherapy usually tracks clients' emotional expression as they talk about the issues that brought them to therapy.  She does this by watching and listening to clients and how they expresses themselves as they talk about traumatic experiences.

Some of the problem areas that an experiential psychotherapist will track will include the clients' use of defense mechanisms:

• Clients, who use the defense mechanism of isolation of affect as their primary defense mechanism, will often talk about traumatic experiences with little to no emotion.  They might relate a horrendous family history in the same matter-of-fact tone that they would give a news report from another part of the world. When the therapist is tracking the clients' emotional expression, she will detect this disconnect between emotions and a traumatic experience, and this will inform her as to where the work needs to focus.

• Clients, who use minimization as their defense mechanism, might have more of a range of emotional expression when they talk about traumatic experiences but, at some point, they might cut off their emotions and minimize the impact of the trauma ("My father use to beat me, but that's how it was back then in a lot of families.  Every parent did it, so I guess I shouldn't complain").  By noting that the client began by relating the trauma experience with emotion and then defensively cutting off the emotion by minimizing the negative impact of the trauma, the psychotherapist notes how the client wards off feelings, and she can work with the client on this.

• Intellectualization is another defense mechanism that clients often use when they are defending against feeling the emotional pain related to traumatic experiences.  Rather than allow themselves to feel the pain, they cut off their emotions by relating their trauma in a logical way with little to no affect.  The experiential psychotherapist will notice this defense mechanism and work towards helping the client to connection emotionally to the trauma so the trauma can get worked through.

• Other clients are not sure how they feel about their traumatic experiences.  They might have a very narrow range of affect because there was no one available when they were growing up to help them process difficult emotions.  As an emotional survival strategy, when they were children, these clients learned to feel as little as possible, especially emotions that made them feel uncomfortable, to keep from being overwhelmed and maintain an attachment to their parents.  As adults, they might not be able to identify their so-called "negative emotions," so the psychotherapist will know that this will be part of the work.

There are many other examples where a psychotherapist, who practices experiential psychotherapy, will detect clients' problems with emotions and use the therapy to help facilitate emotional development, but the examples above give you an idea of the type of problems that can come up that indicate a need for help with emotional development.

With tact and empathy, an experiential psychotherapist can begin to talk to clients who are having problems with experiencing and expressing their emotions and address their defense mechanisms.

This would include psychoeducation about how these defense mechanisms were necessary earlier in life to survive emotionally, but they are now getting in the way.

Facilitating Emotional Development in Experiential Psychotherapy
This is important because if clients continue to use defense mechanisms to ward off their emotions, their emotions remain constricted and buried under their defenses, so that the psychotherapist and the clients cannot get to the core emotions involved in the problem in order to resolve the trauma.

Depending upon the particular client and the type of defense mechanisms that they use, some of the ways that the experiential psychotherapist will facilitate emotional development would be by:

• Establishing a strong therapeutic alliance in therapy so the client realizes that, unlike when s/he was a child and felt alone with uncomfortable emotions, s/he now has a caring psychotherapist who will be a "witness" to the client's history and provide emotional support.

• Empathically attuning to the client and paying attention to the client's conscious and unconscious communication in the therapy sessions.

• Helping the client to be aware of how s/he uses defense mechanisms to avoid feeling certain emotions ("I'm wondering if you're aware of how you tend to look away and drift off when you talk about the emotional neglect that you experienced as a child?)"

• Asking the client, when s/he is ready, to try to not use the defense mechanism that s/he usually uses to see what that's like.  If the client says that it would be unbearable to experience these emotions, the psychotherapist will not push the client beyond where s/he can go, but would take smaller steps to facilitate emotional development.

• Helping the client to expand his or her window of tolerance if the client has only a limited threshold for experiencing difficult emotions.  

• Assisting the client to identify emotions by helping him or her to locate emotions in the body ("I notice that your hands are clenched and your jaw looks tight when you talk about how your mother humiliated you in front of your friends when you were a child.  When you focus on your clenched hands and tight jaw, what emotions are you feeling?").  This helps the client to connect emotions within the body, which will assist the client to identify and express emotions.

Engaging in Metaprocessing of Experiential Therapy in the Session
For clients who were abused or neglected as children, emotional development in psychotherapy is ultimately healing and allow for the working through of unresolved trauma.

But along the way, it can be challenging, so the experiential psychotherapist will do metaprocessing with clients at the end of the therapy session to discuss how clients experienced the work.

This helps the client to understand his or her reactions to the work in therapy, and it also allows them integrate the changes that they are  making.  Some examples might include:

• "You did a lot of good work today in session.  What was it like for you to begin to experience emotions that you have been avoiding for most of your life?"

• "You were able to feel the grief of your loss today for the first time.  What was that like for you?

• "You were able to talk about things that you haven't been able to discuss before.  What was that experience like for you today?"

Encouraging the Client to Retain Therapeutic Gains Between Sessions
Defense mechanisms that have been used for a lifetime to ward off uncomfortable feelings don't just disappear after a few sessions.  They have been clients' default mode and will often reappear between sessions and sometimes even in the same session, which is why it's so important for experiential psychotherapists to metaprocess with clients at the end of the session.

Many clients, who have unresolved trauma, often walk out of the therapy session and forget the therapeutic gains they made during the session.  It's as if they leave these gains and their memories of the session in the therapy room.

It can be frustrating for clients when they return for their next session and they realize that they have little to no memory of what they experienced in the prior session.  They might feel like they're starting at "Square One" again at each session.

To try to help clients to retain the therapeutic gains they achieved, experiential psychotherapists often encourage clients to keep a journal between psychotherapy sessions (see my article: The Benefits of Journal Writing Between Psychotherapy Sessions).

By writing about their thoughts, emotions, fantasies, memories, physical reactions and whatever else comes up related to the therapy session, clients are more likely to retain and integrate the therapeutic gains achieved in the prior therapy session so they're ready to continue the work in their next session.

Helping Clients to Reflect On and Consolidate Therapeutic Gains
Many clients who come to therapy to resolve trauma are in significant emotional pain and they are, understandably, in a hurry to work through traumatic experiences.  As a result, they might have unrealistic ideas about how long it will take in therapy to resolve problems they have had for a lifetime.

An experiential psychotherapist helps clients to realize that therapy isn't something that is "done" to them.  It is a collaboration between the therapist and the client, and each client is different in terms of how long it will take to resolve traumatic experiences.

The experiential psychotherapist is constantly assessing and reassessing the client in terms of what s/he needs from the therapist and how far s/he can go without being overwhelmed by the work.

This is an important clinical judgment call the therapist has to make in order to keep the work moving as long as it is emotionally tolerable for the client.  It would be detrimental to the work and retraumatizing for the client if the therapist attempted to push the client too quickly.

Many clients, who want to work through trauma, come to therapy after avoiding it for many years.  So, after they acknowledge that they need help, they want to make up for lost time and they're unaware of the negative clinical implications of moving too quickly and being emotionally overwhelmed in therapy.

So, an experiential psychotherapist will help the client to reflect on the work that has been done so far.  She will remind the client of where the client started in therapy (i.e., unable to tolerate uncomfortable emotions) and how far s/he has come (i.e., able to tolerate increasingly difficult emotions).

Why is this important?

For one thing, many traumatized clients have difficulty giving themselves credit for positive achievements, especially if they grew up in households were "perfection" was considered the norm.  So, it's important for the psychotherapist to remind the client of his or her progress so s/he can have a sense of pride about it.

Another issue is, as mentioned before, that clients, who have an unrealistic idea of the time frame for overcoming their traumatic experiences, often need a reminder of how far they have come from where they started.

If they're only focused on, "I'm not where I want to be yet," they will be likely to run roughshod over themselves--in much the same way as they were treated by their parents when they were children.

An experiential psychotherapist will provide clients with psychoeducation that progress in therapy isn't linear, respond to their concerns ("My friend completed EMDR therapy in only 10 sessions.  Why am I still processing my trauma with EMDR?) and remind them not to compare themselves to others because everyone is different.

Conclusion
Clients who have a traumatic history often have problems experiencing their emotions.

For some clients, this means that they are unable to feel what they are experiencing because of defense mechanisms they developed in childhood as part of a much-needed emotional survival strategy at the time.

Other clients will have only a narrow range of emotions that they allow themselves to experience (e.g., they can experience anger and frustration, but allowing themselves to feel sadness makes them feel too vulnerable).

The experiential psychotherapist tends to work differently than most talk therapists by helping the client to not just talk about their problems but to work through their issues in a more in-depth experiential way.

Experiential psychotherapy, like EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, is more effective than regular talk therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy
Most people who have a history of emotional trauma are unaware of how their history is impacting their current life.  As a result, they never seek the help they need in therapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If you have been struggling with unresolved problems, you owe it to yourself to get help from a skilled experiential psychotherapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you free yourself from a traumatic history, you can 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 their traumatic experiences.

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 Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

As I discussed in my prior article, people often use defense mechanisms as emotional survival strategies when dealing with the underlying issues that would be too overwhelming for them.  These defense mechanisms usually develop early in life when they helped with emotional survival.  But, as adults, these defense mechanisms get in the way of personal development as well as developing healthy relationships.  Suppressing emotions to be "rational," as opposed to feeling ashamed of not being able to feel emotions, is the defense mechanism that I will focus on in this article (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of So-Called "Negative" Emotions).

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

People who tend to be rational most of the time, to the exclusion of feeling their emotions, usually pride themselves on their rationality.  They don't realize that they're being rational in order to avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings because this defense mechanism is unconscious.

Sooner or later, being rational in order to avoid feelings causes problems, especially in relationships.  The other partner, who has access to all or most of his or her emotions, gets frustrated with the partner who uses being rational as a defense--while the partner who uses being rational feels comfortable with this and can't understand what all the fuss is about.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette:  Seeing Yourself as "Rational" vs. Feeling Shame for Not Being Able to Feel
The following clinical vignette, although fictional, represents many different real cases and illustrates what often happens when someone uses being rational rather than feeling ashamed for not being able to feel a full range of emotions:

Ed began psychotherapy after his girlfriend, Meg, complained that she was frustrated with him because he tended to be rational and logical rather than allowing himself to feel his emotions.  She told him that if he didn't get help, she would end the relationship because she felt alone and lonely when emotional issues came up.

A recent incident lead to Meg giving Ed an ultimatum: Meg had a miscarriage and she couldn't understand Ed's lack of emotion.  Both Ed and Meg wanted to have a baby for the last few years.  When she got pregnant, they were both happy.  Then, several weeks into the pregnancy, Meg had a miscarriage while she was at home, and Ed took her to the hospital.

When they got home later that night, Meg felt devastated.  She couldn't stop crying, and when she turned to Ed, she felt angry and frustrated that he was so unemotional.  She knew that Ed loved her and really wanted to have the baby, so she couldn't understand how he could be so emotionally detached.

When Meg confronted Ed about it, he told her that, while he understood that she was upset, he thought it didn't make sense for him to get emotional about it, "It won't change anything." He thought it would be best for him to stay calm and recognize that they could try again to have a baby.

Meg knew that Ed loved her.  But she also knew that when it came to dealing with emotions that he felt were unpleasant, he would ward off these feelings by being rational in a way that made her feel like she was alone.  She was so upset by his lack of emotional support about the miscarriage that she left for a few of weeks to stay with a friend.  She said she found it too upsetting to be around him.

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

Before she left, Ed pleaded with Meg to stay.  He tried to tell her that he loved her and he wanted to have a child.  He just couldn't understand how it would help to get upset about it.  But Meg left anyway and told him to get help in therapy.

As Ed sat in the psychotherapist's office, he told her that he didn't understand why Meg was so upset with him.  He didn't know why she didn't understand how much better it was in this situation to remain rational and not "lose my head" with emotion.  He felt badly that Meg thought he didn't care when, in fact, he really did care a lot.  He said that it was because he cared that he thought it was better to be rational than to be emotional.

As Ed and his psychotherapist explored his family history, he revealed that both of his parents prided themselves on being rational people.  They had each gone through traumatic experiences as children and they believed that they got through those difficult times by being rational and unemotional, which is what they taught Ed and his younger brother, Jack (see my article: Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma).

As he described his family history, his psychotherapist could see that Ed used being rational to ward off feelings that were difficult for him--like sadness and anger.  She understood that this was a long-standing problem for him, and he wouldn't respond well if she proceeded too quickly to explore the feelings that he was warding off.

His psychotherapist asked Ed to give her examples from his childhood when he remained rational under difficult circumstances.  He told her that one of his earliest memories was when he was five losing his beloved dog, who had been part of the family from before Ed was born.

He remembered crying when his parents told him that the dog died.  Then, both of his parents told him to dry his eyes and stop crying because crying wouldn't change anything.  His father told him that it was always better to remain rational and unemotional under these types of circumstances.  So, Ed stopped crying and dried his eyes.

As he reflected on this experience in his psychotherapist's office, he said he agreed with his parents and he thought they taught him a valuable lesson about remaining rational during difficult times.  He knew that when each of them escaped their country of origin as children with their parents, it helped them to remain rational and unemotional, and he was glad he learned this lesson at an early age.

He thought the same idea applied to Meg's miscarriage.  Rather than being upset about it, he thought, they should focus on the positive things in their lives and try to have a baby again (see my article: Are You Using Your Idea of "Positive Thinking" As a Form of Denial).

A few weeks later, Meg called Ed and told him that she decided to take a break from the relationship. She wanted time to think about what she really wanted, and she would get back to him.

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

By the time Ed came to his next psychotherapy session, he said he felt like he was "going crazy."  Ever since he received the call from Meg, he felt completely overwhelmed.  He couldn't sleep, eat or concentrate at work.

He kept trying to tell him that being upset wouldn't help him, but it made no difference--he continued to feel upset.  This made no sense to him at all, which is why he felt like he was "going crazy." He said he felt like he desperately needed help or "I'll lose my mind."

Ed's psychotherapist understood that Ed's usual defense mechanism of being rational wasn't working for him now.  In the past, he was able to suppress his feelings by being rational, but his feelings for Meg were so strong that his defense mechanism wasn't working.  Since Ed wasn't accustomed to dealing with strong unpleasant emotions, he felt like he was losing his mind.

His psychotherapist assured Ed that he wasn't losing his mind--he was having a normal reaction to the possible loss of his relationship.  Then, sensing that he was now open because he was in an emotional crisis, she provided him with psychoeducation about defense mechanisms (see my article: How a Crisis Open You Up to Positive Changes).

His psychotherapist normalized Ed's reaction to Meg wanting to take time away and helped him to deal with his emotions.  Over time, Ed discovered in therapy how he learned to suppress uncomfortable emotions by using the defense mechanism of being rational.

He also learned that deep down he felt ashamed for not being able to feel all of his emotions, and being rational suppressed his shame.  In addition, he learned that it was healthier for him to be able to experience the full range of all his emotions rather than suppressing them.

His psychotherapist helped Ed to strengthen his tolerance for experiencing the emotions that he had been avoiding (see my article: Expanding Your Window of Tolerance in Psychotherapy).

Over time, he became more comfortable with unpleasant emotions like sadness, grief, and anger, and he also dealt with the losses that he never dealt with as a child.  Although he had to get accustomed to  feeling the full range of his emotions, he told his psychotherapist that he felt relieved to experience these emotions rather than suppress them.

After several months, Meg came back and they dealt with the loss related to the miscarriage together.  Although he was relieved to feel all his emotions, there were still times when Ed thought it was easier, in some ways, not to deal with the unpleasant emotions.  But he also knew that it was healthier for him to experience all of his feelings.

Conclusion
Just like any other defense mechanism, being rational without dealing with uncomfortable emotions, serves to ward off uncomfortable emotions. People who are adamant about being rational and logical, rather than experiencing their emotions, usually don't realize that they're defending against their emotions.

Most of the time, it's a defense mechanism that they learned at an early age, and they really believe that it's a healthy coping strategy.  But being rational and suppressing feelings doesn't work, as in the vignette above.

When a defense mechanism doesn't work, this can create an emotional crisis, which might enable the person in crisis to be more open to looking at his or her emotional survival strategy and to consider change.

With tact and sensitivity for a client's vulnerable state, a skilled psychotherapist can help a client to explore this emotional survival strategy and how s/he can change.

The psychotherapist can also help the client to gradually strengthen his or her window of tolerance to be able to experience emotions that are being defended against.

Getting Help in Therapy
Longstanding emotional survival strategies can be very difficult for you to change on your own (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If your emotional survival strategies aren't working for you, you owe it to yourself to get help in therapy.

Learning healthier coping strategies can help you to experience your full range of emotions so you can feel more alive.

Rather than struggling on your own, get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

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.

I have helped many clients to overcome trauma and develop healthy coping strategies so they could go on to live 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.

Masking Vulnerability and Shame By Pretending You Don't Need Anyone

As I have mentioned in prior articles, defense mechanisms are important in terms of keeping you from feeling overwhelmed, especially when you're a child and you're in a physically or emotionally abusive family situation.  

But when you become an adult, these same defense mechanisms get in the way of having access to a full range of emotions.  Aside from having negative consequences for your emotional development, your relationships suffer as well.  

One common defense mechanism is developing a pride-based identification to cover up shame.  For instance, a child who was neglected or abused grows into an adult who sees himself as being "independent" (not needing anyone) as opposed to dealing his underlying emotions--experiencing shame and hurt for feeling like a burden to his family (see my article:  Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work For You: "I Don't Need Anyone").

Masking Vulnerability and Shame

It's understandable why a child, who has to fend for himself at a young age, would rather see himself as being independent and not needing anyone else.

But this is really a pseudo-independence because children can never really be independent in terms of their emotional and physical needs. Children who are neglected or abused might have no other choice, if they want to survive, than to try to take care of their own needs as best as they can at a great cost to their psychological development and, possibly, their physical development.

It would be too overwhelming for a young child, who has to take care of his own needs, to also try to come to terms with why his parents aren't taking care of him.  So, instead of dealing with the emotional pain involved with that, they develop defense mechanisms that prevent them from feeling overwhelmed, including pride-based identifications ("I'm independent so I don't need anyone") and emotional numbing (see my article: What Happens When You Numb Yourself to Your Traumatic Past?).

The defense mechanism of believing yourself to be independent, which excludes others, masks a deeper sense that the parents didn't take care of the child.  Emotional numbing can numb or mute most feelings.  By shutting off the hurt and anger, you also shut off emotions of joy and happiness.

In addition, you could grow up to feel that you can't trust anyone, so you have to take care of all your needs on your own.  This has negative repercussions for developing healthy relationships.  Some people, who grow up feeling pseudo-independent, unconsciously choose relationships where they have to take care of the other person.  Other people decide to remain alone.

Whether you choose people who you have to take care of and who will never meet your needs or you choose to remain alone, sadly, you can live your entire life trying to maintain the myth that you don't need others in order to avoid dealing with your traumatic history.

When people who believe themselves to be independent, without needing others, come to therapy, they often say they come for other reasons.  Their defense mechanism of feeling pseudo-independent is so firmly established that they don't see it or how it affects their lives.

A skilled psychotherapist usually won't address this dynamic directly at the start of therapy because, in most cases, it would be too emotionally threatening to a client who uses this defense mechanism if the therapist addresses it prematurely.  The therapist needs to assess when the client would be ready to deal with these issues.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: Seeing Yourself as Independent vs. Feeling Shame For Feeling Like a Burden
The following fictional clinical vignette is based on many different cases and illustrates the issues outlined above and how psychotherapy can help:

Tom, who was in his early 30s, began psychotherapy reluctantly because he was having problems at work.  His director praised Tom's work, but he also told Tom that he needed to learn to be a team player.

Specifically, his director referred to a recent project where the tasks for the project were divided among Tom and four other employees, but Tom took on the whole project and completed it himself by working late nights and weekends.  The director reiterated what a great job Tom did, but he told him that Tom's coworkers felt they missed an opportunity to shine on this project.  In addition, they complained that Tom was aloof and avoided interacting with them.  As a result, the director told Tom that he wanted him to develop better relationships with his team and learn to be a part of the team rather than taking on the whole project.

Tom told his psychotherapist that there would be a big new project coming up in a few months where everyone on Tom's team, including Tom, would be assigned a role, and his director expected Tom to interact well with his teammates while he sticks to his assigned role.

Tom told his psychotherapist that he preferred to work alone, even if it meant that he worked many hours.  But his director made himself clear, and Tom didn't want to appear uncooperative or lose his job.  He needed to learn how to, at least, appear like a team player, but he knew this would be stressful for him, which is what brought him to therapy.

He said that he never thought he would seek help in therapy because, from the time he was a young child, he prided himself on being "independent" and "never needed anyone."  Similar to when he was a child, as an adult, he spent most of his time alone, and he preferred it that way.

When his psychotherapist asked Tom to describe his childhood, Tom wasn't sure where to start.  He folded his arms defensively, and asked his therapist what she wanted to know.  Then, he added that he couldn't see how his childhood was relevant to his current problem.

Not wanting to alienate Tom, his psychotherapist asked Tom a few brief questions about his childhood and assumed that, over time, she would find out more when he was ready.  Tom responded to his therapist's questions by saying, "I had a great childhood.  There were no problems in my childhood.  My parents did the best they could."

Over time, Tom divulged more details about his childhood.  He mentioned that he was an only child.  He said his parents were often out of the house much of the time.  His father was a musician who was frequently at gigs at night.  After the gigs, his father and band mates would go out to drink ("My father had a little bit of a drinking problem.  It wasn't really that bad"). He said his mother worked three jobs to make ends meet because his father's gigs didn't bring in much money.   As a result, Tom was mostly alone, so he learned to fend for himself at a young age, which he said gave him a great sense of pride.

His psychotherapist could see that Tom was a neglected child, who developed the defense mechanism of seeing himself as "independent" rather than neglected and he had an avoidant attachment style.  She could also tell that Tom was nowhere near being ready to deal with this, so she didn't want to address it prematurely.

After Tom talked about his parents, he looked uncomfortable and, even though she said nothing, he accused the psychotherapist of trying to say that he had "bad parents."  He told her that he had "the best parents in the world" and wouldn't allow anyone to say that they weren't (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Relationship With Your Psychotherapist).

In response, his psychotherapist recognized that Tom was using projection as a defense mechanism--projecting his own unconscious and disowned feelings about his parents onto her. She tactfully pointed out to Tom that she had not said a word about his parents and wondered what was going on.

Tom seemed to recover himself and apologized.  He said one of the reasons why he avoided coming to therapy in the past was that he assumed that "all psychotherapists" blamed clients' parents, and he had strong feelings about anyone blaming his parents, "I won't allow anyone to say anything negative about my parents."

In the meantime, Tom was dealing with his situation at work by "pretending" to like his coworkers and to feel like he was part of the team.  He said he only did it to save his job, but he felt like "a phony,"which he hated.   At the same time, he admitted that, as he got to know his teammates better, he was starting to like them a little.

As previously mentioned, in his personal life, Tom spent most of his time alone.  Occasionally, he visited his parents to help them with chores and also to help them financially.  His parents were both retired now and dealing with medical problems.

His mother had arthritis so bad that there were days when she was in severe pain.  His father developed liver problems several years before, and his doctor convinced the father that he had to stop drinking.  Although they continued to live together, his parents lived parallel lives with their own friends.  Tom also suspected that his father was having an extramarital affair, but Tom used the defense mechanism of minimization by saying, "Well, he's unhappy, so I don't blame him."

Tom told his psychotherapist that he dated casually from time to time, but he had no real interest in being in a relationship.  When he wasn't helping his parents, he spent most of his time watching TV or playing video games alone.

It took several months for Tom to begin to trust his psychotherapist and to develop a therapeutic alliance with her.  He focused mostly on his work and avoided talking about his personal life.

One day, Tom came in and told his therapist that he watched a TV program where a sad young boy was left at home alone most of the time, and this boy would cry a lot when he was alone.  Tom said that while he was watching the program, he realized that he was crying too, but he didn't know why, "It was only a TV program.  I don't know why it would make me sad.  I know it's not real."

He said, even as he sat in his therapist's office now, he felt like crying about the TV program, and he felt silly about this.  In response, his therapist asked Tom if he would be willing to explore this further.  Tom said that, on the one hand, he felt silly wasting his time in therapy talking about a TV program.  But, he said, on the other hand, he realized that he was deeply affected by this program.

As they explored Tom's reaction to the TV program, Tom told his therapist that he felt sorry for the young boy because his parents left him alone and he was lonely and scared.  As he continued to talk about his emotional reaction to the young boy, suddenly he stopped, "Oh my God!  That boy was me!"

With this realization, Tom burst into tears.  He sobbed for a few minutes, and afterwards, when he recovered, he said he now understood why he felt so sad for the boy in the TV program.  He said this boy's story was also his story.

This sudden realization helped Tom to open up in his therapy.  Over the next few months, Tom opened up more about how sad and lonely he felt as a young boy.  Although he was careful not to blame his parents, he now understood how sad and scary it was for him to be alone so much when he was a child.

A big part of his therapy was mourning what he needed but didn't get as a child.  Waves of grief washed over Tom each time.  Afterwards, he said he felt relieved to allow himself to feel his sadness and, eventually, his anger too, at being left alone.

Another part of his therapy was coming to terms with having seen himself for so many years as being "independent," which masked his sadness and loneliness for feeling like he was a burden to his parents when he was younger.

Tom also realized that, on some level, he still felt like people would see him as a burden, and this was why he tended to remain alone.  He assumed that he was an unlovable person that no one would want.  But instead of allowing himself to feel these feelings, before he got to this point in his therapy, he defended against these feelings by having a general disdain for others (see my article: Overcoming the Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Masking Vulnerability and Shame 

Over time, as Tom continued to work on these issues in therapy, he allowed himself to form better working relationships at work.  He also took risks in his personal life to develop friendships and a romantic relationship.

Conclusion
Children who are physically abused or neglected often develop defense mechanisms to ward off the overwhelming sadness and anger they feel.  As a child, these defense mechanisms work to ward off overwhelming feelings at a time when children don't have anyone to help them to deal with the feelings.

A common defense mechanism is for these children is a pride-based defense of seeing themselves as "independent" rather than face the fact that they are in over their heads trying to take care of themselves.  This defense, which is unconscious, is much easier for them than the underlying shame they really feel for feeling like a burden to their parents.

When these children become adults, they continue to use this defense mechanism to avoid their underlying feelings.  They often have an avoidant attachment style that makes it difficult for them to form relationships with others.  But, in reality, what they perceive as "independence" is really a pseudo-independence that masks shame, hurt and anger.

Sadly, many people live their whole lives warding off their shame, anger and sadness to preserve their false sense of independence and a much-needed false image of "a great childhood."

Often, adults with a false sense of independence, due to childhood neglect or abuse, come to therapy for other reasons.  They might be having problems with relationships at work or in their personal lives.  They might think they have "communication problems."  But the reality is that the problems are much deeper, and it often takes time in therapy for clients to feel safe enough to explore these issues.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you think you might have developed defense mechanisms in childhood that are causing you problems as an adult, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you in a way that feels safe for you to deal with these issues (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Many psychotherapy clients say that, once they have dealt with these underlying issues, they feel so much more alive and energized because they're no longer using so much energy to ward off emotions that are difficult for them.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help so you can live a more authentic and meaningful 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 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.

Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work: "I don't need anyone"

Unresolved early childhood trauma usually leads to emotional survival strategies that were adaptive during childhood, but they are no longer adaptive for adults.  They also often lead to distortions in self perception.  It's not unusual for adults, who were abused or neglected as children, to become adults who deny their own emotional needs and reject emotional connections with others (see my articles: Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma That Occurred a Long Time Ago, Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated, Are You Feeling Trapped By Your Childhood History?, Overcoming the Traumatic Effects of Childhood Trauma, and Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From an Adult Perspective).

Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work: "I don't need anyone."

These survival strategies and distortions in self perception are unconscious.  Underneath them are a lot of fear, hurt, anger and shame.

One way to avoid feeling these underlying feelings is intellectualization.  When it is used to avoid unconscious emotions, intellectualization is a defense strategy.  More about this later.

These problems can begin early in infancy when the baby's primary caregiver is either shutdown emotionally, continuously misattuned to the baby's emotional needs, emotionally neglectful or abusive.

Even if all of the baby's physical needs are being taken care of, the baby still needs emotional attunement from the primary caregiver in order to thrive and learn to develop healthy attachment.

A baby, who makes many attempts to get a caregiver to be emotionally attuned, eventually gives up and shuts down emotionally.  Not only does the baby feel resignation about getting his emotional needs met, but he also gives up and dissociates.

If this is a pervasive experience in a baby's life, it will affect brain development as well as emotional development.

This survival strategy of dissociating is adaptive at that point for the baby because it would be emotionally unbearable to continue to yearn for love and attention that won't be given by the primary caregiver.

But this survival strategy, as an adult, is maladaptive and usually results in disconnection from oneself and others.

The dilemma for this adult is that he (or she) yearns for love and connection, but he's too fearful of getting his needs met, so he either (unconsciously) connects with other adults who cannot meet his needs or he believes himself to be "independent," someone who doesn't need other people.

As mentioned before, a common pattern for people with this problem is to either avoid relationships altogether by intellectualizing ("I only need my books") to negate the yearning for love and connection.

Fictionalized Scenario
The following fictionalized scenario illustrates these dynamics:

Jane
Shortly after Jane was born, she was left with her maternal grandmother when her mother moved from Florida to New York to find work.

Jane's grandmother did the best that she could, but she was often overwhelmed by taking care of her other grandchildren, her responsibilities in the house and running the family business.  As a result, she had little time to spend with Jane aside from meeting Jane's basic physical needs.

The grandmother was raised to believe that if a baby cried, the baby should be left to cry it out rather than being picked up, otherwise, the baby would be spoiled.

How Emotional Survival Strategies Develop in Infancy

So she left Jane crying for long periods of time in the crib.  Eventually, Jane would give up out of sheer physical exhaustion as well as a primitive sense that it was hopeless to keep trying to get anyone's attention.

When Jane's grandmother noticed that Jane was quiet in her crib and was just staring into space, she thought this was good.

To be clear, the grandmother wasn't trying to harm Jane in any way.  She just didn't understand the developmental harm that was being done by not responding to the baby's crying.  And, aside from this, a quiet baby is a compliant baby and was much easier for the grandmother.

When Jane was 10, her mother sent for her to live in New York City.  Even though Jane and her mother had no contact since the mother moved to New York City, when Jane arrived, her mother expected Jane to be affectionate towards her.

But, instead of an affectionate child, Jane's mother encountered a child who showed little emotional reaction to her.  Jane was obedient and passive, but it was obvious that she felt no emotional connection to her mother.

Jane understood that the woman she was meeting after so many years was her mother--she understood it as a fact.  But it had no emotional resonance for her.  She complied with her mother's rules and directives, but Jane remained emotionally disconnected from her (see my article: Adults Who Were Traumatized as Children Are Often Afraid to Feel Their Emotions).

Jane's mother thought of Jane's emotional distance as Jane being willfully disrespectful of her.  She had no understanding, as many parents wouldn't, that Jane's aloofness was an unconscious survival strategy that she developed at an early age to cope with the lack of love and connection from infancy.

Meanwhile when she was at school, Jane's teachers noticed that she tended to isolate herself from other children.  While other children were playing during recess, Jane sat in the corner by herself reading a book.

When Jane's teacher told her mother that she was concerned that Jane wasn't interacting with the other children, Jane's mother dismissed the teacher's concerns, "My daughter is here to learn.  She's not here to make friends.  It's better for her to read than to play."

Throughout high school, Jane's mother discouraged her from dating, "There will be plenty of time for that after you graduate from college."   Jane didn't mind because she felt no need to date boys or to make friends, "I have my books.  I don't need anyone."

During her first year of college, Jane kept to herself. At first, her classmates tried to befriend her, but when they saw that Jane wasn't receptive, they thought that Jane thought of herself as being "too good" for them.  Their friendliness turned to scorn, and they laughed and ridiculed Jane.

Although Jane pretended not to notice, she saw and heard their criticism.  Sometimes it would bother her, but most of the time, she pushed down her discomfort and told herself that she didn't care what they thought, "I don't need anyone."  Then, she would study harder in an effort to avoid feeling her loneliness, anger and hurt.

Jane graduated college with a 4.0 GPA, which she was very proud of and so was her mother.  But she didn't get any interviews from the college recruiters at campus.

Jane applied for many jobs after she graduated college, but she received no responses.  She wasn't  aware that many companies looked not only for good grades--they also wanted to see that students were involved in college activities, and Jane avoided any activities while she was in college.

Eventually, Jane found a job as a part time bookkeeper, which didn't require a college degree.  She worked in a small office by herself.

After a year, Jane found a full time bookkeeping job.  This allowed her to move out of her mother's home to become a roommate in an apartment with three other young women.

Jane didn't really want to have roommates, but she couldn't afford to have her own apartment.  Even though Jane had no interest in making friends with her roommates, one of them, Cathy, went out of her way to be friendly with Jane.

To her surprise, Jane realized that she didn't mind being around Cathy because Cathy did all the talking when they were together and all Jane had to do was be polite and pretend to be interested in what Cathy was saying.

After Cathy asked Jane many times, Jane agreed to go with Cathy to a silent meditation retreat.  Jane thought, "How bad could it be?  All I have to do is be silent."

But when Jane began the silent meditation at the meditation center, she was surprised to discover that she felt upset and emotionally overwhelmed, and she didn't know why.  She asked the center director if she could read books instead, but she was told that she had to focus on meditation.

After a couple of days of silent meditation with no other distractions, Jane felt so emotionally overwhelmed with sadness that it was unbearable.  She felt ashamed to leave early, but she couldn't bear being so overwhelmed.

When she got home, Jane tried to distract herself from her sadness by immersing herself in her books and going online but, no matter what she did, she still felt engulfed by sadness and she didn't know why she was feeling this way and why she couldn't distract herself.

After experiencing overwhelming sadness for a couple of weeks, Jane knew she needed help, but she wasn't sure where to turn, so she sought help from her medical doctor.

Although she felt very ashamed of her feelings, especially since she couldn't think of any reason for her sadness, her fear that she was "going crazy" got her to talk to her doctor.

Jane's doctor explained to her that there was nothing physically wrong with her and that she needed to address these psychological issues in psychotherapy.  Then, he referred her to a psychotherapist.

Getting Help in Therapy For Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work 

Over time, Jane learned in therapy that, as an infant, she developed an emotional survival strategy of disconnecting from her environment as a way to deal with the environment that she grew up in.  Her therapist explained to her that this is called dissociation and it's what babies do when they are being raised by a caregiver who neglects or abuses them.

Jane learned from her therapist that this early emotional survival strategy was adaptive at the time because to continue to yearn for love and attention when none was forthcoming would have been even more emotionally painful when she was an infant.

Her therapist explained that Jane continued to use this emotional survival strategy as an adult.  Jane used books and other intellectual pursuits to distract herself and dissociate from her environment, but it was no longer adaptive in Jane's life--in fact, it was getting in the way of developing healthy friendships and relationships.

When Jane went to the silent meditation retreat, her psychotherapist explained, and she wasn't allowed to distract herself with books, her sadness about years of emotional neglect and disconnection came bubbling up to the surface, and this was what Jane was experiencing now.

The feelings were so strong that Jane could no longer push them down so, rather than trying to suppress them, Jane needed to engage in trauma therapy in order to heal.

She could no longer remain in denial about not needing anyone, which was a defense against feeling her longstanding sadness.  Jane saw this defense mechanism for what it was--an emotional survival strategy and distortion in self perception that was now maladaptive.

The psychotherapist talked to Jane about EMDR therapy. She also took a thorough family history and helped Jane to prepare to do EMDR (see my articles: Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy: When the Past is in the Present and EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough).

The work was neither quick nor easy (see my article: Psychotherapy: Beyond the Bandaid Approach).

But by the time Jane and her therapist began processing her early trauma, Jane trusted her therapist and, eventually, she was able to free herself from her history to lead a fuller life.

Conclusion
When infants are neglected or abused, they're able to develop survival strategies, on an unconscious level, that are adaptive at the time to ward off the devastating emotions that are the result of neglect and abuse.

Although it was adaptive at the time, these emotional survival strategies are no longer adaptive as an older child, teen or an adult.  These strategies keep people cut off from their feelings and in denial about their emotional pain.  It also keeps them cut off from other people.

Although they might believe that they really don't need anyone, this emotional survival strategy and distortion in self perception takes a lot of energy to maintain.

People often distract themselves from difficult underlying emotions with intellectual pursuits, drinking excessively, abusing drugs, gambling compulsively or engaging in other addictive and compulsive behavior.

When someone can no longer distract himself, these underlying emotions often come to the surface in a powerful way so that these emotions can no longer be denied.

Getting Help in Therapy
Various forms of trauma therapy, like EMDR therapy, clinical hypnosis or Somatic Experiencing are effective in helping people to overcome emotional trauma.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself get the help you need from a skilled psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma.

By freeing yourself from a traumatic history, you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I specialize in helping clients to overcome emotional 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.