Healing Attachment Trauma in Trauma Therapy

Attachment trauma, which involves attachment wounds, can occur at any time of life. 

Healing Attachment Trauma in Trauma Therapy 

Attachment trauma often occurs when there are significant disruptions in close relationships.

Examples of Attachment Wounds Which Are Part of Attachment Trauma

Attachment wounds include but are not limited to:

• Early loss or abandonment in childhood

• Death of a parent in childhood

• Lack of affection during childhood

• Being separated during infancy or any time in childhood from parents or primary caregivers

• Physical or emotional abuse, childhood emotional neglect or sexual abuse

• A caregiver who is the source of overwhelming emotional distress for a child

• Infidelity in a relationship including extramarital affairs and financial infidelity

• A caregiver who has a substance abuse problem

• A caregiver with mental health issues or who is emotionally unstable

• A caregiver with an anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment style

• A caregiver with poor emotional, physical or sexual boundaries

• A caregiver who treats a child like a friend (see my article: Why Your Child Can't Be Your Friend)

• A caregiver who is controlling to the point where a child has difficulty individuating (being their own person)

• Divorce in the family during childhood

• Intergenerational trauma

• Betrayal in a romantic relationship, family relationship or friendship

• Lack of support from a partner, spouse or significant other during a significant event or transition

What Are Signs and Symptoms of Attachment Trauma?

The signs and symptoms of attachment trauma include but are not limited to:

• A pattern of difficulties in relationships with friends, family members, significant others and work relationships

A Pattern of Difficulties in Relationships

• A tendency to experience humiliation, shame and/or guilt

• Hyper-reactivity to stress (see my article: Responding Instead of Reacting)

• Hyperarousal

• A tendency to be anxious, avoidant or disorganized in romantic relationships including healthy relationships (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship)

• Enmeshed relationships with family members, friends or significant others

• Poor interpersonal boundaries 

Mental Health and Substance Abuse Issues Related to Attachment Trauma

Mental health and substance abuse issues related to attachment trauma include but are not limited to:

• Depression

• Anxiety
  

• Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Complex trauma

• Alcohol misuse

Attachment Trauma and Alcohol Misuse

• Drug misuse or addiction

• Compulsive gambling

• Overspending

• Overeating

• Out of control sexual behavior (OCSB)
  

Healing Attachment Trauma in Trauma Therapy

There are many different types of trauma therapy, which all come under the umbrella of experiential therapy including:

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

• Parts Work Therapy including Ego States Therapy and Internal Family Systems Therapy

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy
  

How Will You Know When You're on the Path to Healing an Attachment Trauma?

There is no quick fix for healing attachment trauma, but Experiential Therapy, like EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Parts Work tend to be more effective than regular talk therapy for healing trauma (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

Since you might not have experienced emotionally supportive relationships when you were a child, you will probably need time to develop a therapeutic rapport with your trauma therapist, so it's good to be aware of this as you start trauma therapy (see my article: Can You Learn to Trust Your Therapist If You Weren't Able to Trust Your Family?).

Signs that might be part of your path to healing an attachment trauma include but are not limited to:

• You're beginning to respond instead of react to stress

• You're starting to feel safer in your body

• You're getting better at setting boundaries

• You're becoming more aware of when you feel ashamed, guilty or humiliated when there's no objective reason to feel that way

• You're beginning to feel less anxious

• You're becoming aware that your depression is beginning to lift

• You're starting to make healthier choices in relationships

• You're feeling less anxious, avoidant or disorganized in a healthy relationship

• You're cutting back or you have stopped drinking excessively

• You're cutting back or you have stopped misusing drugs

• You're feeling less inclined to gamble compulsively

• You're less inclined to overspend

• You're less inclined to overeat during times of stress 

• You no longer feel comfortable in enmeshed relationships

• You're prioritizing self care

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you're struggling with attachment trauma, you're not alone.

Healing Attachment Trauma in Trauma Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome unresolved trauma.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist.

Trauma therapy can help you to free yourself from your traumatic past so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma 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.

Have You Internalized Your Parents' Anxiety and Emotional Insecurities?

Children internalize their parents' emotional experiences.   In my prior article, I provided a clinical vignette where the client feared taking risks because she grew up with parents who were anxious and risk averse (see my article: Balancing Fear of Failure vs. Future Regret).  In this article, I'm focusing on how anxiety and emotional insecurities are internalized intergenerational at a young age and continue into adulthood.

Have You Internalized Your Parents' Anxiety and Emotional Insecurities?

One of the advantages of attending psychotherapy is that you and your psychotherapist can work on separating your parents' emotions and experiences and yours and, if the therapy is successful, you won't pass on these traits to your children (see my article: Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Your Unresolved Trauma Can Have Emotional Repercussions For Your Children).

Since young children see the world through their parents' eyes, they usually internalize their parents' emotions and view of the world.  This can be an intergenerational pattern where these emotions and  views are passed down from one generation to the next for many generations.

When there has been psychological trauma in an older generation, this is often passed on to subsequent generations--even if the relatives from the generation with direct experience of the trauma never discuss it (see my article: Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma).

For instance, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors will often say that neither their grandparents nor there parents ever discussed the Holocaust, so they don't understand how they internalized their grandparents' traumatic experiences.  But traumatic experiences don't have to be discussed for internalization because the internalization occurs on an unconscious level.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Internalizing Your Parents' Anxiety and Emotional Insecurities
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how anxiety and emotional insecurities are passed down and internalized intergenerationally:

Tania
Tania came to therapy after struggling with anxiety and emotional insecurities about money for her entire life.

Prior to coming to therapy, Tania had always felt that she could handle her problems on her own.  When her friends told her that they were starting psychotherapy, Tania couldn't understand why they needed to get help in therapy.  It didn't make sense to her because she considered her friends to be "strong" and her view of psychotherapy was that only people who are "weak" need to go to therapy (see my article: Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Going to Therapy Means You're "Weak").

When she was in her 20s, Tania believed that she would be in a successful career and own a home by the time she was in her mid-30s.  But, although she had a successful career and she was in a relationship with a man that she loved, she couldn't bring herself to make an investment in a home.

When she turned 38, she was doing well financially, but she feared making such a major investment as buying a home.  Being only two years away from turning 40, she envisioned the years stretching out before her and remaining in a rental apartment with no prospect for change.

Her romantic partner, Dan, who lived with Tania, told her that he wanted them to buy an apartment together in the next couple of years, but Tania was too afraid to do it.

Tania also told her psychotherapist that her financial advisor told her that she could afford to buy an apartment and encouraged her to make the investment, but she was too afraid--even though she knew logically that she could afford it.

When Tania and her psychotherapist talked about her family background, Tania revealed that her parents were first-generation Americans and her grandparents struggled financially to come to the United States.

Even though Tania's parents eventually overcame the poverty they endured as children, they never got over those experiences.  Her father worked three jobs in order to make ends meet and, eventually, he started his own business, which was successful.  But, despite their hard-earned financial success, her parents never overcame their fear that everything they worked for could go up in smoke and they could become poor again.  They continued to live very frugally due to their emotional insecurities.

Tania's psychotherapist provided Tania with psychoeducation about intergenerational trauma.  She also told Tania that it appeared that Tania internalized her grandparents' and parents' anxiety and insecurities and that they could work towards helping her to separate her experience from her grandparents' and parents' experiences.

Although it made sense to Tania that she internalized her family's experiences, she didn't feel hopeful that her feelings would ever change.  These feelings were so ingrained in her that she couldn't believe she could ever feel differently.

Her psychotherapist talked to Tania about starting with Somatic Experiencing to "uncouple" her grandparents' and parents' experiences from her own.  She explained to Tania that, although she was close to her parents and grandparents, she needed to begin to separate her emotions and beliefs rather than remain entangled in her family's beliefs and emotions.

Tania acknowledged that she knew objectively that she could afford to buy her own apartment rather than continuing to rent.  She also knew that it would be a wise financial decision for her when she looked at it logically.  But when she thought about buying an apartment, she also felt dread that she would be making a mistake.  Tania told her psychotherapist that she couldn't understand how she could know one thing logically but feel something else emotionally.

Using Somatic Experiencing, Tania's psychotherapist asked her to begin by allowing herself to feel the excitement and anticipated happiness of buying an apartment with Dan.  She asked Tania to put her anxiety and insecurities aside for the moment and whenever Tania felt these feelings were about to intrude, she should continue to put them aside.

At first, it was difficult for Tania to keep her anxiety separate from her excitement.  She would start to feel the excitement and joy of buying a place with Dan, which she really wanted, but then her anxiety would intrude.  She followed her psychotherapist's suggestions about how to put her anxiety aside for now and, eventually, she was able to identify a sense of happiness and that she felt it in her chest.

Tania and her psychotherapist stayed with the sense of happiness that Tania felt in her chest and worked towards expanding that feeling.  She was eventually able to associate the feeling of happiness in her chest with various images, colors and a sense of physical warmth.  She felt that these feelings, sensations and images were her own and not related to her family's experiences, so she was able to uncouple her experience from her family's.

After a few months, Tania's psychotherapist recommended that they use EMDR therapy to work on the anxiety and insecurities.

As they set up the EMDR therapy protocol, Tania said that her negative belief about herself was, "I'm powerless."  She explained to her therapist that her feelings of powerlessness involved a fear that she would, in some undefined way, lose everything if she and Dan bought an apartment together.

Using EMDR therapy, they worked for several months on current memories and childhood memories that were involved with Tania's anxiety and insecurities.

After a while, Tania had a strong felt sense that she was different from her family and that their experiences weren't her experiences.  Rather than feeling powerless, she felt empowered.  At that point, she realized that what she knew logically came together with how she felt on an emotional level.

Shortly after completing EMDR therapy, Tania and Dan began looking for an apartment.  She remained in therapy to deal with the normal stress of apartment hunting, but she no longer had an irrational fear of buying an apartment.

She continued to be close to her family, but she also felt like an autonomous adult who was no longer affected by her family's intergenerational trauma.

Conclusion
Children tend to internalize their parents' experiences at a young age.  If their parents are emotionally secure people, the chances are that the children will also grow up to feel secure.

But if the parents are anxious and insecure, as illustrated in the clinical vignette above, the children will most likely feel anxious and insecure.  These experiences are often passed down from one generation to the next.  This is usually an unconscious process, even if the older generation never speaks about their traumatic experiences.

Getting Help in Therapy
Intergenerational trauma doesn't have to be a "life sentence" of traumatic experiences passed down from one generation to the next.

Trauma therapy can be an effective way of overcoming trauma.

Trauma therapy can help to break the trauma cycle.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome your anxiety and insecurities so that you can lead a more fulfilled life (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, and 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.

Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Children

In a previous article, Overcoming Your Emotional Blind Spots, I began a discussion about how your unresolved trauma can affect your loved ones, including your children.  In this article, I'm exploring this further by delving deeper into the affect of parents' unresolved trauma on their children (see my article: Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue With Negative Consequences and Overcoming Childhood Trauma That Affects Adult Relationships).

Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child

Most parents want the best for their children and would never intentionally overlook a problem that their children are having.  But having an emotional blind spot usually means that the problem is out of your awareness so that you don't see it.  And if you don't see it for yourself, you often won't see it when it involves your children.

When the blind spot involves unresolved trauma, there's an even greater chance that the problem will go undetected.

A Fictionalized Vignette About How a Parent's Unresolved Trauma Can Affect a Child
The following fictionalized vignette is based on a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:

Jane
After years of enduring a chaotic family environment, Jane was relieved to move out of her parents' home when she went away to college.  Her family home was a tense, volatile place where Jane never knew when one of her parents would explode.

Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child

Jane was dimly aware that her parents had narrowly escaped from a repressive regime in their native country, but she didn't know what really happened because they refused to talk about it.  Their attitude was that, unlike many of their relatives, they were fortunate enough to leave their country and  they wanted to leave behind everything that happened to them.

Even though her parents' traumatic experiences were never spoken about or even acknowledged, Jane sensed that her parents' emotional volatility was related to their unspoken experiences, but she didn't know how or why.  And since her parents' attitude was that they "left it behind" them and they refused to talk about it, there was no way for Jane to bring this up.

Instead of discussing it, without their realizing it, her parents' earlier experiences came out in other unintended ways, including their constant warnings that the "world isn't a safe place."

Not only were they overly protective of her, from an objective point of view, but they would become hysterical with worry over minor issues, including Jane coming home a little late when she saw her friends.  They were highly anxious people and assumed that she had been kidnapped or murdered.

Aside from their anxiety and volatility, Jane's father would often drink too much.  This exacerbated the volatile situation at home because he would become loud and even angrier than usual.  He and Jane's mother would argue more when he was drunk (see my article: People Who Have Alcohol Problems Often Don't Get the Help They Need).

But whenever Jane tried to talk to her mother about the father's alcoholism, Jane's mother made excuses for him and told Jane that Jane couldn't possibly understand what she and Jane's father had been through in their native country, and the father drank to "take the edge off."

After trying to talk to her mother about it several times, Jane gave up.  She realized that, even though her mother didn't like the father's drinking, her mother felt too conflicted about it to address it with him.   She knew it was  futile to try to talk to her mother about it, so she began to "tune out" whenever her father was drunk, and it didn't bother her as much (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

Jane felt compassionate towards her parents, even if she wasn't really aware of what happened to them.  But after she graduated college, she moved in with her college roommates, and she only saw her parents occasionally because it was too hard for her to be around them.

When Jane got married and had a baby, she was determined to be different than her parents.  She loved her daughter a lot, and she made conscious decisions that were completely different from what her parents did with her, and she felt proud of herself.

Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child

When her marriage began to fall apart, Jane was determined that her daughter, Alice, would not experience the kind of volatility at home that Jane experienced as a child.  She refused to argue with her husband in front of her daughter.

And when she and her husband decided to get a divorce, they spoke to their daughter, who was in her mid-teens by then, together.  They assured her that they both loved her and would always remain in her life.  But Alice took the divorce hard, she began acting out at home, and her grades plummeted at school.

At the recommendation of Alice's guidance counselor, Jane brought Alice to therapy so Alice could work out her anger and sadness about her parents' divorce.

Initially, Alice was uncooperative in therapy, but as she developed more of a rapport with her therapist, she opened up more and began to like going to therapy.

As part of Alice's therapy, both Jane and her ex-husband met with the therapist and Alice once a month.  They were pleased with the progress that Alice was making in therapy and they both wanted the best for their daughter.

During the sixth month of therapy, Alice's therapist requested Jane to come to one of Alice's therapy sessions without her ex-husband.  This surprised Jane, and she wondered about it.  But she decided to wait to ask questions until after she had heard what this was about.

As soon as Jane entered the therapist's office, where Alice was already waiting for her, she sensed that Alice was very tense and uncomfortable.  She avoided making eye contact with Jane when Jane came into the room, which concerned Jane.

There was an awkward silence initially, and then Alice began to speak with an anxious voice.  At first, Jane couldn't understand what Alice was trying to tell her.  It was as if she heard Alice saying words, but she couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

Jane could see that Alice looked very frustrated by Jane's confusion, and Alice turned to her therapist in exasperation.  Then, Alice's therapist told Jane, "Jane, your daughter is telling you that she has a drinking problem."

Jane was stunned and speechless.  Her eyes darted from the therapist to Alice and then back to the therapist (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

Alice began to cry and then she yelled at Jane, "Mom, I've been trying to tell you for the last year that I have a drinking problem, but it's like you just tune out!  You're not hearing me!  And you're still not hearing me!" (see my article: Ambivalence and Codependence in the Mother-Daughter Relationship).

The therapy session felt unreal for Jane.  It was as if she was having a bad dream and that any moment she would wake up from this dream.

She kept thinking to herself:  This isn't real.  I just have to open my eyes, and this will be over.   But why can't I open my eyes? (see my article: Overcoming Your Denial About Family Problems).

Then, she realized that Alice's therapist was telling Jane about a alcohol rehabilitation center for adolescence that she was recommending for Alice.  She offered to make the referral and could have Alice in treatment by the next day.

Alice explained to Jane that she had recently told her father about her drinking problem, and he was able to hear it.  But Alice was angry that Jane wasn't there for her about this.  Alice needed help and she needed her mother to be there for her now more than ever.

At that point, Jane felt like she was going through the motions.  She felt like a robot.  She consented for Alice's therapist to make the referral and drove Alice to the rehab.

Driving home from the rehab, Jane had to pull over because she felt overwhelmed with emotion.  Alone and frightened, she couldn't stop crying.  She couldn't understand how this all happened to her daughter--she thought she did everything right.

During a family visit to Alice's rehab, Jane met with Alice and her rehab counselor.  Alice had calmed down since the day Jane met with her and her therapist.  She was now able to calmly recount the times when she tried to tell Jane that she was drinking, but Jane seemed to almost go into a trance.

Although it was confusing and emotionally painful for her to listen to this, Jane listened attentively.  She felt guilty and ashamed. She would never have hurt her daughter intentionally, so she couldn't understand why she had not heard her daughter's cries for help (see my article: Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships).

The rehab counselor also explained the possible genetic link between Jane's father's alcoholism and Alice's problems with alcohol.  She told Jane that Alice was depressed and she was "self medicating" with alcohol (see my article:  Adolescent Depression).

When she met with the other visiting families in the rehab, she heard similar stories to her own--many mothers and fathers who had emotional blind spots and didn't hear their children's cries for help.

At that point, Jane realized that she wasn't alone, but she wanted to understand why she had this blind spot and what she could do about it, so she began attending her own individual therapy (see my article:  Psychotherapy to Overcome Your Past Childhood Trauma).

During the course of her individual therapy, Jane learned about intergenerational trauma and how it can affect one generation after the next in unconscious ways.

She realized that she was directly affected by her parents' unresolved trauma without realizing it, and that Alice was affected by her unresolved trauma.

Jane also realized that she coped with her parent's volatility and her father's alcoholism by shutting down or, to use a psychological term, dissociating.

She learned that this was her unconscious defense mechanism as a child to cope with an unbearable traumatic situation and that it worked for her at the time.  But this same unconscious defense mechanism was counterproductive later on in life with her daughter.

As Jane began to work on her own unresolved traumatic childhood experiences in therapy, she began to feel like a weight was being lifted from her.  She also started remembering times when Alice approached her to try to talk about her drinking problem.

These memories, which, until recently were dissociated in Jane's mind, were very painful to remember.  As part of her treatment, Jane apologized to Alice, who was much more forgiving of Jane after she heard about Jane's experiences as a child.

Until then, Jane had never spoken to Alice about these experiences because she didn't want to burden Alice.  But Jane wanted Alice to understand that these were longstanding unconscious problems and that she didn't know that they were affecting her ability to be completely present with Alice.

Jane also worked on self compassion for not being as good a mother as she hoped that she would be.  She developed compassion for herself as an adult as well as for the struggling child she had been in her family home (see my article: Psychotherapy and Compassionate Self Acceptance).

Conclusion
Unresolved emotional trauma often has a way of getting played out from one generation to the next in ways that are unconscious to everyone involved.

It's not unusual to trace back this intergenerational trauma for many years, even though it might be very hard to detect by people who don't have psychological training.

This is one of the major reasons why it's important to get treated for unresolved trauma before it has an impact on your children, their children and generations to follow.

Getting Help in Therapy
We know so much more about psychological trauma and intergenerational trauma and how it can be transmitted to one generation after the next (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Trauma therapists are also uniquely trained to help clients with unresolved trauma to overcome the effects of the trauma (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than continuing to suffer with the effects of unresolved trauma, you can get help from a licensed psychotherapist who is a trauma therapist so you and your family can live more fulfilling lives.

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

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome single event traumas as well as longstanding 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.

Intergenerational Trauma: Recurring Nightmares

For many years, a friend of mine, Ann (not her real name), was having a recurring nightmare, which was very close to a dream she heard about from her mother when Ann was about four years old.   In her mother's nightmare, her mother couldn't find Ann, who was an infant in the dream.  She was panic stricken, in the dream, and she looked all over for Ann, but couldn't find her.  Finally, a man came along and took her to a place where there were lots of babies.  She looked at all the babies, hoping to find Ann, but all the babies looked alike and she still couldn't find Ann.

Transgenerational Trauma: Recurring Nightmares

Clearly, this was a recurring anxiety dream that stemmed from Ann's mother's long history of emotional trauma.  Hearing her mother's dream at such a young age stirred up a lot of anxiety for Ann that she was unable to contain because she was too young to handle it.  Her mother, who was a loving mother in many ways, didn't realize that she was overwhelming Ann by telling her about these recurring dreams, which she had at least a few time a month.

You can imagine how frightening it must have been for a child of four to hear that her mother kept losing her in her dreams.  Children of that age are completely dependent upon their parents and couldn't survive without them.  Trying to contain this type of anxiety at such a young age is beyond a child's capacities.

Soon after hearing about her mother's recurring nightmare, Ann began having a similar dream that involved losing her cat in the same way that her mother lost her in her mother's recurring dreams.  This dream about losing her cat and trying to find her cat among many cats that looked like hers went on until Ann was in her mid-30s.  She recognized that her recurring dream was related to her mother's anxiety dreams, but she didn't know what to do about it until she got help in therapy, at which time the nightmares stopped.

I'm using Ann's experience (with her permission) to illustrate that this is a common phenomenon with children who grow up trying to contain overwhelming amounts of anxiety that one or both parents are unable to contain themselves.  These recurring nightmares, which bear a remarkable resemble to a parent's dream, can go on for many years.  As an adult, an individual has a greater capacity to handle these anxiety dreams.  But they're still disturbing and carry the trauma that the parent was unable to carry.

Transgenerational Trauma
We know a lot more now about intergenerational trauma than we did when Ann was growing up.  We now know that emotional trauma can be passed on through many generations, even if the family members, who were originally affected by the trauma, never speak about it.  The children of many children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are examples of this type of intergenerational trauma being passed on.

Dreams reveal what is going on for a person on an unconscious level, and even though Ann appeared to be a healthy, stable child, her dreams revealed that she was carrying a great deal of anxiety related to her mother's trauma.  Fortunately, she was able to get the help she needed from a psychotherapist who specialized in doing trauma work, and she was able to overcome the vicarious trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you think you've been traumatized by intergenerational trauma, you owe it to yourself to get professional help from a licensed trauma therapist.

It is possible to overcome intergenerational trauma with the right help.

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 during regular business hours or send me an email me.

Also see my article:  Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma

What is Intergenerational Trauma?

The topic of my prior blog post was Psychotherapy: Healing Your Emotional Wounds.  In that blog post, I mentioned that when people have unresolved, unhealed trauma, they often pass on their fears and anxiety, unconsciously, to their children and that it's not unusual, under these circumstances to see transgenerational trauma.

Intergenerational Trauma

What is Intergenerational Trauma?
As the name implies, transgenerational trauma are emotional wounds that are passed on from one generation to the next, usually, in an unconscious manner. Most of the time, this passing on of trauma from one generation to the next occurs because there is little or no understanding about how trauma affects the self and others and the trauma has not been worked through by the person who originally experienced the trauma.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with no identifiable information, illustrates how transgenerational trauma gets passed on:

Sonia:
Sonia, who was a woman in her mid-30s, came to therapy because she was extremely anxious and her anxiety was affecting her family.

When we went over her personal history, there were no overt signs of abuse or neglect. She grew up in a loving family in NYC. Based on Sonia's account, her parents were supportive and attentive to Sonia and her siblings. Sonia couldn't see any reason why she felt as anxious as she did: She had difficulty sleeping, she worried about almost everything, and she had a terrible sense of foreboding almost all of the time that something bad was going to happen.

Her husband encouraged Sonia to start psychotherapy because he felt that Sonia's anxiety was affecting their five year old daughter. Their daughter was already showing signs of being an anxious child, even though it was obvious that both Sonia and her husband were loving parents.

"My husband says that I make our daughter nervous," Sonia told me, "but I don't see how I do that. And I don't understand why I'm so nervous myself most of the time."

Based on her account, Sonia seemed like she was a very attentive mother who was emotionally attuned to her daughter. But, it was obvious that she was passing on her own anxiety to her daughter somehow.

When we went over Sonia's parents family history, I could see that both of them had experienced early trauma when they were growing up in their native country. Sonia's father lost his parents in a car accident when he was five, and he was raised by an aunt who was both physically and emotionally abusive towards him and his brothers. By the time he was 18, he left the aunt's household to be on his own. He lead a precarious existence until he came to NYC and met and married Sonia's mother. At that point, his life settled down and he had a more stable life, but he tended to be anxious and he worried a lot.

Sonia's mother, who grew up in the same country, lived through several dangerous hurricanes, one of which destroyed the family home. As a young girl, not only did she see the family home destroyed, she also witnessed the drowning of her beloved uncle when the family was attempting to cross a river during the severe flooding related to one of the hurricanes. From that time on, Sonia's mother had nightmares and panic attacks. She never obtained professional help for her anxiety, and she managed her panic attacks by taking anti-anxiety medication. But her nightmares never stopped.

As Sonia and I continued to work together, I discovered that Sonia's parents tended to be overprotective of her and the other children when they were growing up and, without being aware of it, they passed on her worries to Sonia and Sonia's siblings. Sonia grew up feeling that the world was not a safe place and anything that could go wrong would go wrong.

Until we began talking about it, Sonia never realized that her unnamed fears originated with her parents and she was now conveying her fears to her daughter. I provided Sonia with psychoeducation about the nature of transgenerational trauma. Gradually, we worked through Sonia's anxiety using a combination of EMDR and clinical hypnosis until she worked through her fears.

It was only after Sonia had worked through her anxiety and she realized what it felt like to be calm that she realized how anxious she had been all of this time. During that time, Sonia also took her daughter to see a psychotherapist who worked with children so that her daughter wouldn't grow up with the same anxiety that Sonia experienced.

Often, Without Realizing It, People Who Experience Trauma Pass on Their Fears to Their Children 
It's not unusual for people who experience trauma to inadvertently pass on their doubts and fears to their children. There have been many documented cases of this with Holocaust survivors, even in cases where the survivors never discuss what happened. Without realizing it, they convey their fears on an unconscious level to their children so the children often feel that the world is not a safe place.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you think that your trauma is affecting your loved ones or that you are the one who is affected by transgenerational trauma, you're not alone and you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed psychotherapist who has expertise in dealing with trauma and transgenerational trauma.

About Me

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

I have helped many clients to overcome trauma and transgenerational trauma.

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

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

Also, see my article:  Psychotherapy: Healing Your Emotional Wounds

Healing Your Emotional Wounds in Therapy

Emotional wounds are a source of shame for many people. Often, rather than getting help, their initial inclination is to either suppress or deny these emotional wounds in an effort to rid themselves of the emotional pain. But when we deny or suppress emotional wounds, the result is that they intensify.

 

Healing Your Emotional Wounds in Therapy

When we're physically hurt, we usually don't think about getting rid of the body part that is injured. So, for instance, we wouldn't think of cutting off an arm that was bruised or burnt. We know that, in most cases, there needs to be special care and attention for the arm to heal.

But when it comes to emotional wounds, many people are much more impatient and rejecting of help than they would be for a physical wound. They either don't know or they don't want to know that, often, these emotional wounds have been around for a long time and, no matter how much they might want to banish them, they'll still be there unless they get special attention and care, much the same as a physical wound.

We know that if we have a physical wound and we don't take care of it, it will get worse. Lack of care can create severe or life threatening consequences. In much the same way, emotional wounds can also become worse and, in some cases, become life threatening if a person is very depressed or anxious.

We have choices as to how we relate to our emotional wounds. We can deny, suppress or ignore them, all of which tends to make them worse. Or, we can look upon them with compassion and see them for what they usually are--early childhood aspects of ourselves that either suffered from abuse or neglect and that need professional psychological help.

When we neglect these emotionally wounded aspects of ourselves, we are, unconsciously, perpetuating the original trauma. Not only can we perpetuate it in ourselves, but we can also have a profound traumatic effect on our loved ones. It's not unusual to see transgenerational trauma that is passed down from one generation to the next, unintentionally, because the original trauma remains unhealed.

Making the Unconscious Conscious:
As I mentioned, when we retraumatize ourselves or we pass on the effects of our trauma onto others, this is an unconscious process. So, if it's unconscious, how can we become more aware of it so that we can make the unconscious conscious?

Often, if you observe your thoughts and attitudes towards yourself, you can begin to see where you're being overly critical, judgmental and harsh with yourself. For many people who practice mindfulness meditation, they become aware of their punitive thoughts and attitudes towards themselves and also become aware that they need to develop more self compassion. They begin to see how they're being overly critical of themselves and engaging in negative self talk.

Even if you don't practice mindfulness meditation and you take the time to observe your internal dialogue, you can see if you're being too hard on yourself and you ask yourself where this harshness originates from. Very often, it originates from early trauma that created emotional wounds.

Many people become aware of their own harshness towards themselves when their friends or loved ones observe it and comment on it. These same people, who are being so harsh on themselves, would almost never be as harsh on someone else in similar circumstances. They often reserve their most punishing attitudes towards themselves because this is what they have internalized, in most cases, when they were growing up.

For most people, they learn to make the unconscious conscious in psychotherapy where the psychotherapist has a psychodynamic orientation as part of the treatment modalities he or she uses with clients, and can help clients to heal from their trauma.

Self Compassion for Your Emotional Wounds:

If you think of the emotional wound as an aspect of your inner child, you'll probably have more compassion for that part of yourself. This could be the start of your being more open and willing to seek help to heal.

Getting Help in Therapy 

Taking the first step is often the hardest. When you're mired in hurt and shame, you might feel that you're the only one who is experiencing this. 

But you're not alone. Once you've become aware that your emotional wounds are having a detrimental effect on your life, the next step is accepting this and taking action to find a professional mental health practitioner who specializes in trauma because the healing work that needs to be done cannot be done by you alone.

Rather than spending the rest of your life adversely affected by your trauma, you could benefit from working through these issues with a licensed psychotherapist who has expertise in this area.

About Me

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

I work with individuals and couples.

I use a variety of treatment modalities, including mind-body oriented psychotherapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and cognitive behavioral treatment, depending upon the needs of the client.

I have helped many people overcome their emotional wounds 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.

Also see my article:  Psychotherapy and Transgenerational Trauma

Overcoming Your Unresolved Childhood Trauma

Many people avoid seeking psychological help for past childhood trauma because they fear that it will be too emotionally overwhelming for them. 

Overcoming Unresolved Childhood Trauma

While it is understandable that someone with childhood trauma would feel this way, the emotional consequences of not dealing with past childhood trauma often far outweigh whatever emotional upset involved with seeking psychological help and overcoming the trauma.

Emotional trauma, by definition, is overwhelming when it occurs, whether it is a single incident of trauma or complex trauma where there was an array of traumatic events.

Dealing with Trauma as an Adult vs. Dealing with Trauma as a Child:
When we're children and we experience emotional trauma, we don't have the emotional or cognitive abilities to cope. A child's emotional system can be easily overwhelmed by emotional trauma, especially if there isn't a competent and caring adult to help the child. 

Children often react to emotional trauma by dissociating the event (numbing themselves emotionally). They might become very quiet, and what's going on for them in their internal emotional world might not be apparent to adults. 

Other children, who dissociate traumatic events, might appear to be functioning at their normal level because they compartmentalize the event, and the effects might not surface until they are adults. Other children act out at home or at school, and this is a signal to parents and teachers that something is wrong, and the child needs help.

While it's true that a child usually lacks the ability to deal with emotional trauma, that same person as an adult usually have coping abilities that he or she didn't have to deal with the same trauma as a child. Often, adults who fear dealing with their childhood emotional trauma fear that they will feel as overwhelmed now as they felt as children.

The fear that dealing with their trauma will be too much for them is often an unconscious fear that they will feel the same feelings in the same exact way as they did when they were children. But, because it's an unconscious fear, what is usually overlooked is that the thing that they fear has already happened. In other words, there is no distinction for them in their internal emotional world that what happened was then and this is now. They might know on an intellectual level that "that was then and this is now," but they don't feel it emotionally.

In addition, adults who fear dealing with their prior childhood trauma often don't know that most psychotherapists who have an expertise in dealing with trauma have careful ways of working to help clients so they usually don't feel as emotionally overwhelmed as when these adults were children.

How I Work with Trauma:
When I work with a client who has unresolved childhood emotional trauma, I usually start by making sure that this client has the emotional ability to deal with working through the trauma. As part of the early work, I assess for these capabilities.

If I find that a client lacks the internal emotional resources to deal with the trauma, the early work will be helping the client to develop these internal resources. Internal resources that allow clients to cope with whatever comes up are very important in trauma work.

An example of an internal resource would be the ability to calm yourself by going to a safe or calm place in your mind where you can relax and let go of overwhelming emotions. It's also important for clients to have external resources to help them cope, such as being able to talk to close friends and caring family members, meditating, going to yoga class or the gym or other helpful external ways to manage stress.

Also, when I am working with clients who have unresolved trauma, I usually work in a way where the traumatic experiences are titrated so clients are less likely to feel overwhelmed. This titration usually involves dealing with the trauma by working through manageable pieces of the trauma.

After clients have developed internal resources, if they begin to feel overwhelmed in session as we're working on the trauma, I help them to switch from the beginnings of that overwhelming emotion back to their internal resources until they feel safe enough to go back to dealing with the trauma. So, in other words, I help clients to "pendulate" between their overwhelming feelings to a calmer state.

The Negative Consequences of Not Dealing with Unresolved Trauma:
Whether we realize it or not, past unresolved trauma often has negative consequences in our lives. Depending upon the trauma, the following is a list of the negative consequences that people often experience when they do not work through their trauma in therapy:

People with unresolved trauma often suffer from higher rates of anxiety and depression as compared to the general population. Their anxiety or depression make it difficult for them to perform their daily activities of living and compromise their close relationships. This often results in loss of relationships or loss of jobs.

Untreated emotional trauma can result in fear of getting close to other people. This might mean that the people with unresolved trauma fear getting involved in intimate relationships or they are unable to form close friendships. They might keep people at a distance from them because of their fear of getting hurt again, which could cause them to feel lonely and sad.

Even when people with unresolved trauma do get involved in intimate relationships, they often, unconsciously, choose people who will be emotionally and or physically abusive to them in similar ways to how they were abused as children. This often happens repeatedly, even though these people might tell themselves that they don't want to choose abusive partners again.

People who have unresolved trauma often have higher rates of substance abuse problems, as compared to the general population. They often use alcohol or drugs to numb their overwhelming emotions.

Unresolved trauma often results in physical problems, including high blood pressure, headaches, asthma attacks and other medical problems. Even though people with unresolved trauma might not be consciously thinking about or remembering their trauma, their bodies "remember" the trauma in ways that make them sick physically.

Many medical doctors who are savvy about the mind-body connection and how trauma affects people on both emotional and physical levels will refer their patients for psychotherapy with psychotherapists who have an expertise in trauma. But many doctors are not knowledgeable about the mind-body connection, and they continue to treat their patients only on a physical level with medication. The medication, while important, is only treating the physical symptoms of trauma--it's not helping the patients to resolve the trauma.

People with unresolved trauma often feel less resilient so they have a hard time "bouncing back" from current problems. They're so overwhelmed with the old trauma that they haven't dealt with that new problems are often too much for them. 

So, other people, who might not know that a person has prior unresolved trauma, might think that this person is overreacting to current problems. They might not see that this person is reacting not only to current problems but that the unresolved trauma is getting triggered too. To outsiders, these people often appear to be behaving in emotionally irrational ways. The person with the unresolved trauma might not understand himself or herself what's happening and it can be frightening.

Unresolved trauma is often passed on from one generation to the next. Of course, this isn't intentional. It happens unconsciously as children often absorb their parents' fears. This can happen even if a parent never talks to his or her child about what happened to the parent when he or she was younger. 

It happens because children are often exquisitely attuned to what's happening emotionally to their parents and they "pick up" on trauma more easily than most people realize. 

For instance, this is often seen among children of Holocaust survivors or survivors of other man-made or natural disasters. The parents might never talk about their experiences, but children can often intuit that their parents have overwhelming fears. When they sense this, they often grow up to feel that the world is not a safe place for them, and something bad and overwhelming could happen at any time.

The above list will begin to give you an idea of how unresolved trauma can affect you and those that you love.

The following scenario is a composite of many different cases and should serve to illustrate the consequences of unresolved trauma as well as how trauma therapy can help:

Ann:
When Ann was 21, she was relieved to be able to move out of her parents' home. She had lived all of her life with an alcoholic father who was emotionally and physically abusive to her as a child and a mother who was extremely passive and emotionally beaten down herself from her husband's abuse. 

After saving up enough money to get her own apartment, Ann vowed that she would look upon her childhood as a chapter in her life that she was closing, never to be looked at again. Moving out for Ann was a new beginning and she never wanted to look back at the abuse that she experienced growing up.

Ann took a lot of satisfaction in being able to set up her apartment the way that she wanted and the freedom of coming and going as she pleased without anyone, like her abusive father, being able to tell her what to do or to put her down.

Ann had a couple of friends that she talked to and socialized with now and then. But, usually, she felt too afraid to form close or intimate relationships. When she was growing up, she could never bring friends over because she never knew when her father was going to be in an alcoholic rage and she felt too ashamed to allow other people outside of the family to see this. So, she might go to other children's houses to play, but she never invited them to her house.

Often, this became uncomfortable because children would ask her about her parents and her home, and she didn't know what to say. She felt too embarrassed to tell them that her father drank a lot and he was abusive, so she would make up excuses, even though she knew that the other children didn't always believe her. At times, she would overhear some of the children talking and laughing about her and her parents, and this hurt her feelings and made her want to keep to herself.

As an adult, Ann's two friends would often tell her that they felt that she was emotionally distant from them. They liked her and wanted to get closer to her, but they felt that she managed to keep her distance. Whenever this topic came up, Ann felt very uncomfortable. She had a sense that what her friends were saying was true, but she found it was too emotionally overwhelming to deal with it, so she denied it to herself and to them. At the same time, she felt very lonely and wanted and needed to feel close to someone, but she was too afraid to allow herself to get close to anyone.

Then, one day, when Ann was out with her two friends at a bar, she met Bill. Bill was so friendly and charming that Ann found him hard to resist, in spite of her usual very cautious nature. From the moment that she met Bill, Ann felt that there was something so familiar about him, as if she had known him for years. She had never felt this way before, and she was amazed and taken off guard.

Ann and Bill began dating, and she found herself falling in love with him quickly. Her friends, who thought that Ann would never allow anyone to get that close to her, were thrilled that she met someone who was so loving and attentive towards her. Ann felt like a whole new world had opened up for her both internally and externally, and she realized that she had never felt this way before.

A year or so later, Ann and Bill decided to get married. Ann dreaded having Bill meet her parents, but she had visited Bill's parents numerous times, and she knew she couldn't avoid having Bill meet her parents indefinitely. On the day that Ann brought Bill to meet her parents, Ann's mother greeted them at the door looking anxious. She told them that Ann's father wasn't feeling well and he was upstairs in the bedroom sleeping.

Ann knew instantly that this meant that her father was sleeping off an alcoholic binge. She felt very angry that her father couldn't stay sober long enough to meet Bill, but she kept these feelings to herself and tried to make the best of it. Her mother made an effort to appear chipper and carefree, but she looked like a nervous wreck. 

When Ann saw how her mother was acting, she felt very ashamed. All of her old childhood fears of allowing other people to meet her parents came rushing to the surface. She felt that bringing Bill to her parents' home was a big mistake. For his part, Bill was his usual charming self and he handled the situation well.

Throughout dinner, Ann felt like she was part of some surreal play in which all of the characters were playing their parts and doing their best to ignore the emotional environment around them. After they finished dinner, Ann couldn't wait to leave, so she turned down her mother's dessert and made up an excuse to leave early. 

Ann felt that her mother said all the right things to encourage them to stay, but Ann felt that, underneath it all, her mother was just as relieved to have them leave. Once she was out the door, Ann breathed a sigh of relief and she and Bill went back to her apartment.

After they got married, things seemed to be going well, at first. But, over time, Ann began to suspect that Bill had a drinking problem that he had managed to keep hidden from her while they were dating. At first, she didn't want to see how much Bill was drinking when he got home from work. She made excuses to herself about his behavior because it was too much for her to see.

But one night it all came to a head at a dinner in their home with Ann's two friends and their boyfriends. Bill started out the evening being charming, gracious host, but as he continued to drink, he became loud and argumentative. Ann felt close to tears, and she put her head down and hoped the evening would pass quickly. But before the night was over, Bill nearly punched one of the friend's boyfriends, and Ann's guests left abruptly with her friends telling her that they would call her tomorrow.

At first, Ann told herself that this was only one night and Bill had never behaved in this way before. Bill was very apologetic and promised her that it would never happen again. She forgave him, called her friends to apologize, and she decided to put the whole incident behind her as if it had never happened. 

But these incidents began to happen more regularly whenever they had his or her friends over, as Bill began to drink more and more. And Ann was beginning to run out of excuses that she made to herself and to her guests for Bill's behavior. 

Finally, after an incident where Bill got so drunk that he was abusive to her in front of their guests, shouting at her and attempting to take a swing at her, Ann couldn't remain in denial any longer. One of Bill's friends grabbed hold of Bill and told him to calm down or he would call the police. Then, he helped Bill to stagger up to the bedroom where he fell into a drunken stupor.

After that night, Ann had the painful realization that she had married a man who was a lot like her father. She could hardly believe that Bill had this other side to him that she had never seen before when they were dating. She also couldn't believe that she was behaving just like her mother with the same resignation, passivity, and denial. Even though she had told herself when she was growing up that she would never be like her mother and never marry anyone like her father, here she was in the same situation that she vowed she would never be in.

Subsequently, Ann made what were some painful decisions for her: She decided to find a psychotherapist who could help her. She also told Bill that he needed to go to an alcohol program and go to A.A. if he wanted to save their marriage. 

Bill was not at all open to getting help and told her that he felt he could control his drinking on his own. A part of Ann felt that if Bill wasn't going to get help, why should she? After all, in her eyes, he was the one with the problem. But Ann was in an emotional crisis, and she didn't want to confide in her friends so, with some resentment towards Bill, she found a psychotherapist who specialized in the problems that she felt overwhelmed by and started therapy.

Her psychotherapist, who was a trauma expert, helped Ann to develop coping skills that she never had. Her therapist knew that Ann was not ready to leave her marriage, even though she was in an emotionally abusive relationship. 

Trauma Therapy

So, she helped Ann to deal with the day-to-day crises in her marriage, and she told Ann about Al-Anon and encouraged her to attend. As Ann developed better coping skills, she began to feel stronger emotionally and more able to deal with the problems in her marriage. When Bill continued to refuse to get help, Ann proposed a trial separation, which Bill did not want. He realized that Ann was serious and he could lose her, so he began attending an outpatient substance abuse program and going to A.A.

As the situation at home calmed down, Ann's therapist helped her to explore her childhood issues which had lead Ann, unconsciously, to repeat her childhood trauma in her adult life. Whenever Ann began to feel overwhelmed by emotions that felt like they were going to overtake her, she was able to tell her therapist and her therapist helped her to manage those feelings by temporarily entering into a meditative state to calm down until she felt calm enough to continue dealing with the childhood trauma.

As Ann's therapist helped her to "pendulate" back and forth from discomfort to comfort, Ann began to realize that she could manage and, eventually, overcome these emotions that she had avoided dealing with for years. Ann's therapist also helped Ann to deal with her childhood trauma in "manageable bites" so that Ann didn't feel like she was on a runaway train of emotional trauma.

As Ann continued in her therapy, she learned about the mind-body connection in trauma. She learned that the body holds the memories of the trauma, even when she wasn't consciously thinking about it. She began to realize that her headaches and body aches were often the result of her tremendous efforts to hold back these traumatic memories from consciousness, and when she allowed herself to deal with the trauma in a manageable way, she often felt calmer and her body felt less tense than when she braced herself against feeling her feelings.

As she continued in her therapy work and her marriage improved, Ann realized that she had kept her world very small because of her trauma and shame. Gradually, she began to allow others to get to know her better. Her friends began to comment that she seemed more relaxed and open with them. While her trauma work in therapy wasn't easy, she began to discover that it was easier for her to deal with it than to continue to avoid it, so she felt encouraged to continue.

Overcoming Childhood Trauma
The above composite account of a psychotherapy case illustrates how unresolved childhood trauma can continue to affect an adult even when that person is no longer in their old environment. It also demonstrates that there is hope and the possibility of living a more meaningful life when people make a choice to get psychological help to overcome their trauma rather than continuing to avoid it out of fear.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have unresolved trauma, you owe it to yourself and the people that you love to get psychological help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in trauma. 

The renewed energy and peace of mind that people regain after they have overcome unresolved trauma usually outweighs the discomfort of working out these problems in therapy.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and EMDR therapist who works with trauma using mind-body psychotherapy.

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

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

Also, see my article:  Overcoming Childhood Trauma that Affects Your Adult Relationships