Rediscovering in Psychotherapy What You Thought Didn't Exist

Psychotherapy often provides clients with an opportunity to rediscover in therapy what they thought didn't exist in their lives.  This is especially true in experiential therapy, like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Processing) therapy, and clinical hypnosis (see my articles: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain, What is Adjunctive EMDR Therapy? and Overcoming Trauma With Somatic Experiencing).

Rediscovering in Psychotherapy What You Thought Didn't Exist

Clients who come to therapy to work on unresolved traumatic experiences are, understandably, focused on the negative experiences they had, especially if those traumatic experiences go back to childhood.

But in experiential psychotherapy, they often rediscover that there were also positive, life affirming experiences that they have forgotten because of the preponderance of traumatic experiences that overshadowed everything else.

Rediscovering these positive experiences doesn't negate the traumatic experiences that need to be resolved in therapy.  But it gives clients a broader perspective of their lives.  It can also help them to see that they have internal resources that they didn't know they had.

As a psychotherapist, I have been delighted to witness this experience many times with clients in therapy.  Often in the mist of processing a traumatic memory, a client will suddenly remember that there was someone who did something that helped him or her at that time--whether it was a teacher, mentor, a relative or a friend. Or they will remember a transformative experience that helped them while they were enduring the trauma.  When a client has forgotten these positive memories, the rediscovery of them in therapy can be an epiphany.

These rediscovered positive memories aren't necessarily dramatic experiences, but their rediscovery often leads to advances in the processing of the traumatic memories.

Fictional Clinical Vignette

The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates the healing effect of rediscovering positive memories within the context of processing traumatic memories:

Sandy

After a particularly difficult family visit, Sandy began psychotherapy to deal with longstanding unresolved trauma related to her childhood experiences in her family and the emotional triggers that were set off by the last family visit (see my article: Why Is It That It's Often the Healthiest Person in a Dysfunctional Family Who Seeks Help in Therapy?).

She explained to her psychotherapist that she had a contentious relationship with her parents from an early age.  She said parents often belittled her and physically abused her when she was a child, which resulted in her low self esteem and anxiety.

Rediscovering in Psychotherapy What You Thought Didn't Exist

Since moving to New York City, Sandy limited her contact with her parents because their interactions were still contentious.  But, generally, she went home a couple of times a year during the holidays to try to maintain some type of connection with them, even though these visits often left her feeling disappointed and hurt.

During the holidays in 2016, she went to visit her parents for Christmas, and she found this visit to be the most challenging of all.

She and her parents never agreed on politics, and she tended to stay away from political conversations because she knew they would lead to arguments.  But, on the first day of her visit, her parents were so elated that their candidate won the presidential election that they could barely talk about anything else to Sandy, who voted for the candidate who lost (see my article: How to Cope With Difficult Family Get-Togethers).

Sandy was already reeling from the results of the presidential election, and she wasn't prepared to deal with the usual tension in her relationship with her parents as well as hearing them gloat about the election.  Tactfully, she suggested that they change the subject because it was upsetting to her.  But, as usual, her parents paid no attention to her feelings and her mother told her that she was being "too sensitive" and a "spoiled sport."

Sandy told her therapist that hearing those two phrases triggered childhood memories when both of her parents tended to disregard her feelings by telling her that she was "too sensitive" and a "spoiled sport" (see my article: How to Cope With Getting Emotionally Triggered During Family Visits).

Even though she was an adult, she said she felt like she was a helpless child again in her family home where she could neither fight back nor flee. As a child, she would stay in her room and fantasize about the day that she would be old enough to move out.  When she graduated high school, she was relieved to go away to college, and she never moved back into the family home.  

During the family visit that occurred shortly after the presidential election, Sandy told her parents that  if they didn't stop talking about the election, she would leave.  In response, they were dismissive and continued to disregard her feelings, so she packed her things and took a cab to the airport where she spent the Christmas holiday waiting to get a flight back to New York City.

She told her psychotherapist that it was a miserable Christmas for her.  But she felt she had to take care of herself by doing what she was unable to do when she was a child--leave her parents' home.  She explained that since that visit, she was flooded by childhood memories of her mother hitting her with a belt and her father taunting her for being "a crybaby."

That's when she decided that, in addition to coping with her current problems with her parents, she needed to work through her traumatic childhood memories so these memories wouldn't continue to get triggered.

Over the next several sessions, after Sandy and her psychotherapist talked about her family history and did the preparation work for trauma therapy, they began trauma therapy using a combination of Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy to work on past trauma as well as current difficulties with her family (see my article: Integrating EMDR Therapy and Somatic Experiencing).

During the trauma therapy, Sandy told her psychotherapist that her childhood was one long, bleak, lonely experience with no one to help her.  Not only was she an only child, but she had little contact with other relatives, who lived out of state.  Since her parents didn't allow her to invite friends over or to go to friend's homes, Sandy often felt lonely and unlovable as a child (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Then, one day in therapy, after they did several sets of EMDR, Sandy suddenly remembered a high school teacher, Ms. Scott, who took Sandy under her wing.  She spent time with Sandy after class and encouraged her to open her mind to possibilities beyond their town, including applying to out of state colleges (see my article: How One Person Can Make a Difference in a Traumatized Child's Life).

Sandy was moved in her therapy session by remembering the impact of her former high school teacher, "How could I have forgotten how much Ms. Scott helped me?"

She said that if it had not been for the encouragement of Ms. Scott, she probably would have never applied to colleges--much less colleges out of state--because her parents didn't believe it was necessary for her to go to college.  They told her that what was most important was for her to get a job, any job, so she could contribute to the household.

Ms. Scott helped Sandy to see that a whole new world was waiting for her.   And, when Sandy's parents refused to help her with the college application process, Ms. Scott helped her with that process as well as the financial aid process when Sandy was accepted into a college in New York City.

Sandy's psychotherapist noticed how Sandy's face lit up and how alive she seemed after she remembered Ms. Scott, so they used these experiences as internal resources to help Sandy through the processing of the trauma.

Sandy said that she had forgotten how kind and generous Ms. Scott was to her.  Looking back now on those memories, she realized that there was someone who made her feel she was worthwhile and lovable at that time.  Recapturing those feelings facilitated the processing of the past trauma as well as the current difficulties with her family.

Soon after that, Sandy contacted Ms. Scott, who had since retired but who continued to live in the same town.  Ms. Scott, who now asked Sandy to call her Betty, was delighted to hear from Sandy and they planned to get together for lunch during Betty's next visit to New York City.

Conclusion

A long history of trauma can overshadow positive experiences in a person's memory.  But experiential psychotherapy can create the therapeutic environment that leads to the rediscovery of positive, life affirming experiences even in a traumatic childhood.  The rediscovery of these memories can facilitate the processing of traumatic memories.

Getting Help in Therapy

Unresolved traumatic memories often get triggered by current experiences, which is why it's so important to work through the unresolved trauma (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Experiential therapy, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, is usually more effective than regular talk therapy to process trauma (see my article: Why Experiential Psychotherapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone).

Along the way, it's not unusual for clients in trauma therapy to rediscover people and experiences that they forgot about who were helpful to them in the past.  Combined with trauma therapy, those past positive memories can provide the client with the much needed internal resources to work through the trauma.  

Rather than continuing to get triggered, you owe it to yourself to get the help you need from a skilled trauma therapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you have worked through unresolved trauma, 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 unresolved 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.

How to Cope With Getting Emotionally Triggered During Family Visits

In an earlier article,  How to Cope With Difficult Family Visits, I discussed coping strategies to deal with difficult family get-togethers.  In this article, I'm focusing specifically on how to cope with getting emotionally triggered during family visits (see my articles: Overcoming Dysfunctional Ways of Relating in Your Family, Regressing to Feeling Like a Child Again During Family Visits and Learning to Develop Healthy Boundaries Within an Enmeshed Family).

How to Cope With Getting Emotionally Triggered During Family Visits

When there's a long history of dysfunction in a family, family visits can be fraught with problems, especially if you're not prepared for emotional triggers.

Have you ever wondered why you're able to overlook an unpleasant comment that an acquaintance makes, but if a family members makes the same comment, you have a different emotional reaction?

The answer is that you're not as emotionally invested with an acquaintance as you are with family members.  Also, there's probably not a long history between you and the acquaintance, whereas with your family, you've probably experienced similar problems.

Fictional Vignette:  Getting Emotionally Triggered During a Family Visit

Cindy
Cindy loved her family, but she usually found going home for family visits difficult.

Whenever she went home, Cindy experienced her family and herself falling into old dysfunctional patterns that she disliked.

How to Cope With Getting Emotionally Triggered During Family Visits

Although she knew that her mother loved her, she often made comments about Cindy's weight, which was a longstanding sensitive issue for Cindy.

This was an old pattern with her mother, and no matter how many times Cindy told her mother that her comments weren't helpful, her mother would insist that she was "trying to be helpful."

There just seemed to be no getting through to her mother, and her mother's comments would usually lead to an argument between Cindy and her mother.

Her father, who knew that Cindy wasn't in a relationship, would usually ask Cindy, "So how's your love life going?"

Then, when Cindy told him that she was seeing anyone, he would express concern and ask her why she was dating anyone, which infuriated her.

Cindy's brother earned a lot of money as a corporate attorney, and he tended to look down on Cindy's job as a Legal Aid attorney.  He also made disparaging remarks about her salary and her clients, which annoyed Cindy.  She felt that he was trying to make her feel ashamed, and they would frequently argue.

After yet another family visit where Cindy argued with her mother, father and brother, Cindy decided to get help in therapy.

She knew that these were old familial patterns, and she wasn't going to change her family, but she hoped to change her own reactions to them (see my article: You Can't Change the Past, But You Can Change How the Past Affects You).

Over time, Cindy and her therapist worked on the underling issues that got triggered for Cindy when she went to see her family.

Using a combination of EMDR Therapy and Somatic Experiencing, they were able to gradually work through these triggers so they no longer affected her.

Cindy also learned how to set limits with her family in a gentle and tactful way.

The real test of what she accomplished in therapy occurred during her next family visit when, as usual, her family made the same remarks that usually triggered Cindy.

To her surprise, Cindy discovered that while she was disappointed that they were going down the same path as usual, she didn't have an emotional reaction.  Instead, she felt that these were their issues and they didn't concern her.

Suggestions on How to Cope With Getting Triggered During Family Visits

• Prepare yourself mentally before you go so you're not caught off guard.  While you might not be able to prepare for every comment or slight, if you know that you tend to get triggered, take care of yourself beforehand by engaging in self care (see my articles:  Learning to Relax: Going on an Internal Retreat and Self Care: Feeling Entitled to Take Care of Yourself).

• Be aware that whatever your family members might say or do, they don't define you.  They might have different opinions about what you "should" or "shouldn't" being doing.  But, as an adult, you get to make your own choices.

• "Bookend" your visit with calls to supportive friends both before and after (and possibly during) your family visit so you don't feel alone.  Emotional support during a family visit can make all the difference.

• Take breaks while you're with your family.  You don't have to be with them 24/7 during your visit.  If you plan breaks where you go out for a walk, it gives both them and you a break and a way to "reset" so you can regulate yourself emotionally.

• Maintain appropriate boundaries with family members in a tactful manner so that if they attempt to cross a sensitive boundary with you, you can set limits with them.

Getting Help in Therapy
When you get emotionally triggered, this is usually a sign that you have unresolved emotional issues that need to get worked through (see my article:The Benefits of Psychotherapy and Expanding Your Window of Tolerance in Therapy to Overcome Emotional Problems).

Working with a skilled psychotherapist, you can work through these unresolved issues so that you're not constantly getting triggered by the same situations (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

If you find yourself continually getting triggered with your family, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional.

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

I have helped many clients to work through unresolved trauma so they are no longer triggered in familiar situations.  

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 Cope With Difficult Family Get-Togethers

Many people become anxious when they have to attend family get-togethers because these get-togethers can become contentious.  Your family members and you can lapse into old dysfunctional patterns especially if there's a long history of dysfunction in the family  (see my article: Regressing to Feeling Like a Child Again During Family Visits,  Overcoming Dysfunctional Ways of Relating in Your Family and Learn to Develop Healthy Boundaries With an Enmeshed Family).

How to Cope With Difficult Family Get-Togethers 

Family get-togethers are "supposed to be" joyous occasions where family members share a meal and talk happily over the dinner table.  

But the reality is that in many families there is often a lot of tension and pressure, especially if there's a long history of conflict among family members.

When there's tension and pressure, most family members walk on eggshells trying not to say or do anything that might start an argument.

There might also be a big disconnect between how you would like your family to be and how they are, leaving you feeling very disappointed.

It's possible that  everyone will come together and have a genuinely good time, which would be great.

But if you know your family has a history of conflicts and that the strain of a family get-together puts everyone on edge, you'll need to change your expectations about what's possible (see my article: Holiday Time With Your Family: Balancing Your Expectations).

Tips For Dealing With Difficult Family Get-Togethers:

• Practice self care before you go see your family (see my article: Stress Management: Creating Quiet Time For Yourself, Learn to Relax: Square Breathing and Take Time For Self Care).

• Change your expectations (as previously mentioned).  You might want your family to be like "The Waltons" or like an episode of "Father Knows Best," but your desire alone won't change your family dynamics.

• Don't try to "fix" your family members.  Accept that they are who they are and it's not your responsibility to try to "improve" them.  This will go a long way to avoiding arguments.

• Avoid topics that could start arguments, like politics or religion.  

• Keep the conversation light, if possible.

• Try to gently and tactfully change the topic if a family member brings up a contentious topic.

How to Cope With Difficult Family Get-Togethers

• Don't try to settle family scores at the family get-together, especially if it's a holiday.  This isn't the time or place for this.

• Volunteer to help out, which could decrease the tension about things that need to get done.

• Try to be patient with family members who annoy you, like relatives who don't pitch in with cooking, cleaning or taking care of the children or people who tend to complain a lot.

• Take a break, if you need one, by going for a walk if things become too tense for you or, if you can't leave the house, go to the bathroom, splash cold water on your face and take a couple of deep breaths before you reengage with your family. 

• Try to shift your perspective about family members to try to find something positive, if possible  (there's an old saying, "Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day").  Usually, things aren't all bad.

• Ask yourself if your anticipation of a contentious time might be clouding your perception of what good there might be.

• Ask yourself how you might be contributing to the negative environment.

• Keep your perspective.  Remember, even if things go very wrong, that nothing lasts forever and the visit is time limited, so it will soon be over.  You will survive.

About Me

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

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

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

Home for the Holidays

Being with family for the holidays can be challenging for many people. We see images of happy families in ads, TV programs, and movies, which can leave us feeling that something is wrong with us or our families if our family doesn't measure up to these happy images. However, the holidays can be very stressful, especially if we have unrealistic expectations of our families or ourselves.

Home for the Holidays

Rather than putting unnecessary pressure on yourself and your family, here are a few tips to help you during these holiday get togethers:

• Try to keep the day light. Steer clear of topics that might be contentious or that could create tension. This is not the time to debate politics if you know the discussion will become heated.

• Try to have reasonable expectations of friends and family. If Uncle Bob tends to be grouchy at family gatherings, there's no reason to expect that his personality will change this year.

• Watch your alcohol intake. Alcohol tends to amplify emotions and if you drink excessively, you might find yourself saying and doing things at the family gathering that you might regret.

• Don't take the bait if a relative becomes difficult. Try not to personalize his or her behavior.

• Plan in advance.  If you know in advance that a family gathering will be difficult, "book end" the visit by planning in advance to talk to a trusted friend or loved one before and after the visit so you feel supported.

• Do keep in mind the meaning of the holiday. So, for instance, Thanksgiving is a day to acknowledge all that we have to be grateful for.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I work with individuals and couples.

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.

Do You Feel Like a Child Again During Family Visits?

What is it about family visits that make so many people regress to feeling like young children again? How is it possible that people who function very well in their every day lives--whether they're teachers, firefighters, or CEOs of major corporations--can be reduced to feeling like helpless children during a visit home to their families?

Feeling Like a Child Again During Family Visits

For many people, family visits are a time when they look forward to seeing their parents and siblings. They're fortunate to have nurturing relationships with their families, so going home is a positive experience. 

But for others, who are not as fortunate, going home to see parents is fraught with conflict and stress. Some people describe family visits as if they are tiptoeing through an area filled with land mine. They feel they must think carefully before they broach any topic that might set off either an argument or emotional estrangement.

Many people are surprised that they can feel so confident and mature in their every day life, but when they return to family's home, they feel like children again. They find themselves reacting to the same old emotional triggers that caused problems between themselves and their families when they were growing up.

A Clinical Vignette: 

The following scenario, which is a composite of many clients with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality, is an example of the challenges that many people face when they visit their families on holidays and feel themselves regressing back to their childhood:

Roger:
Roger was known in his firm as a tough and tenacious litigator. Whenever his law firm had a difficult case, the senior partners would call on Roger because he had a reputation for being one of the best attorneys in his field. He loved his work and would often spend long hours preparing for a case. He was also in a loving, stable, long-term relationship with his girlfriend, and they planned to get married.

On most days, Roger felt like he was on top of the world. He never backed away from a challenge. But all of that changed whenever he went home for a family visit, especially on Mother's Day. As he described it, he could feel himself transforming from a successful, mature adult to an angry child the moment he set foot in his parents' house. Both his mother and father overwhelmed him with unsolicited "advice" that felt like veiled criticism about everything from how to maintain his apartment to how to manage his money.

He could feel the anger rising up in him during those times because he felt infantilized by his parents. It didn't seem to matter that he was already in his early 40s, he earned a very good living, he owned several properties, he had a good relationship and good friends, and he was generally considered a very successful person by most people's standards. Notwithstanding of all this, his parents felt the need to tell him what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, and this infuriated Roger.

But what infuriated Roger the most was that he "took the bait" in these situatons every time. Even though he vowed to himself each time not to allow his parents to get him angry, he always reverted back to feeling like the angry child that he was when he lived at home with his parents. Once this dynamic was set in motion, he felt himself sliding down that same old emotional slippery slope every time.

This was Roger's presenting problem when he started psychotherapy. He wanted to be able to visit his parents (whom he really loved, despite how angry he often felt towards them) and maintain his sense of himself as a competent adult without the emotional regression. He wanted to be able to spend quality time with them without feeling emotionally triggered by their behavior when they treated him like a child.

To that end, after exploring his childhood relationship with his parents, Roger and I planned for his next visit on Mother's Day. He already knew that his mother tended not to like his Mother's Day card or any gift that he gave her. He knew that, even though his parents were well meaning, they still saw him as their youngest child who needed their "advice." He also knew that something happened to him whenever he was in their presence. He felt trapped, like a child who could not leave his parents' home and who was forced to endure behavior that humiliated and infuriated him.

Regressing to Feeling Like a Child Again During Family Visits

Before his next Mother's Day visit, Roger and I strategized about how he would maintain his sense of self as a competent, mature adult, and how he could set limits with his parents. Since these visits always made him feel anxious, we role played various scenarios which often occurred on his visits home. 

With practice, Roger felt more competent about handling the upcoming family visit. And whereas he usually did not feel entitled to set limits with his parents because he regressed emotionally to feeling like a child, with practice in our sessions, he was able to internalize that he was entitled to be treated like an adult. And if his parents had a need to treat him like a child, for whatever reason, that was their problem and he would not allow it to affect him.

On that Mother's Day, Roger visited his parents armed with the strategies that we had practiced in our sessions. He was still nervous and feared that he would sink back down into feeling like an angry, helpless child again before he would be able to implement these strategies. He also feared that his parents would not respond well to his setting limits with them. 

Nevertheless, he was able to stand his ground as soon as the unsolicited "advice" and veiled criticism started coming his way. At first, his parents seemed surprised. They had never experienced Roger push back before. 

But contrary to Roger's fears, he was able to set limits with his parents in a loving, tactful but firm way. It made him feel confident and empowered. And, from that day forward, his parents stopped treating him like a child, and he stopped feeling like a child in their presence.

Conclusion
Visiting your family on holidays like Mother's Day or Christmas can be an emotional challenge. But you can learn to change the dynamic between you and your parents during these visits. 

Often, when you change your way of relating to your parents, they will learn to respond to you as an adult and not a child. Often, the key is to learn what triggers your regression from a mature adult to feeling like a child and learn ways not to get triggered. 

That might mean setting limits on what your parents say to you, how they treat you or your partner, or it might mean spending less time with them during these visits, but making that time as enjoyable and meaningful as possible.

I knew a woman who used to hold onto her car keys in her pocket whenever she went home to visit her parents. Holding the car keys in her hand was a reminder to her that she was a mature adult who was not trapped in her parents' home like she was when she was a child. After a while, she no longer needed to do this because she internalized these feelings without the keys as "props."

Emotional regression during family visits is a common experience. Psychotherapy is often helpful to overcome these feelings. But there are no one-size-fits all strategies. Every person's experience is unique. 

Getting Help in Therapy

If visiting home brings up more intense feelings, like the type of feelings that come up that are related to childhood trauma, EMDR therapy or clinical hypnosis can be valuable in helping you to overcome trauma.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing 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 or email me.