With Experiential Therapy, There Are No Blank-Slate Therapists - Part 2

In my prior article, I began a discussion about how experiential psychotherapy is different from conventional psychotherapy.  I discussed that some therapists in conventional therapy still work with their clients from a stance of neutrality with little to no self disclosure.  This is in contrast to experiential therapy where the psychotherapist is a dynamic, empathic, emotionally accessible, and a collaborative presence in the therapy session with the client (see my article: Why Experiential Psychotherapy is More Effective Than Conventional Talk Therapy).

With Experiential Therapy, There Are No Blank-Slate Therapists

Fictional Clinical Vignette: With Experiential Therapy, There Are No Blank-Slate Therapists
The following fictional clinical vignette, which is representative of the issues being discussed in this article, illustrates the difference between experiential psychotherapy and conventional psychotherapy where the therapist takes a neutral stance with the client:

Alan
Attending therapy twice a week, Alan endured long silences in his therapy sessions with his conventional talk therapy psychotherapist.

Alan dreaded these silences because it reminded him of the times when he was a young child and he and his parents sat in stony silence at the dinner table.  During those days, when he attempted to talk at the dinner table about things that went on at school, his father would reprimand him, "Be quiet and eat your food" (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

Afterwards, his mother would oversee his nightly ritual of washing up and putting on his pajamas before he went to bed.  He often wished that his mother would read him a bedtime story, which is what his friend, Tom's mom would do when Tom went to bed.  But having asked his mother for a  bedtime story in the past, Alan knew that his mother would reject his request and just tell him to go to sleep.

As he lay on the couch in his therapist's office for his second session of the week, he stared at the ceiling as he became increasingly uncomfortable.  From behind him, Alan could hear his therapist shift slightly in his chair, but that was the only sound that Alan heard.  He knew from his prior sessions that his therapist could go nearly an entire session without saying anything if Alan didn't know what to say.  Alan dreaded those long silences and he hoped this wouldn't be one of those sessions.

Clearing his throat to speak, Alan said in a low voice, "I'm not sure what else to talk about.  We have discussed so many times before how I feel like I'm an unlovable person and how lonely that is for me.  I don't know what else to say about it" (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

From behind him, Alan heard his therapist writing, but his therapist didn't respond to Alan's remark.  Alan thought about how he had been coming to therapy with Dr. Walsh for three years, and he felt he wasn't making any progress.  In the past, when he mentioned this to Dr. Walsh, he told Alan that it would take many years of therapy for Alan to see progress (see my article: Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Therapy Takes a Long Time).

Alan, who was about to turn 35, didn't feel like he could endure his emotional pain without relief for several more years.  Whenever he told his therapist this in the past and asked his therapist what he thought was getting in the way of his progress, his therapist turned the question back on Alan and asked Alan what he thought.  But Alan didn't know what he thought, and this was frustrating to him.

After enduring another session where they were mostly silent, Alan left feeling worse than before the session.  As he walked to meet his friend, Ed, for coffee, Alan thought about how he knew nothing about Dr. Walsh even though he had been attending twice-a-week sessions with him for three years.

At one point in an earlier session, he asked Dr. Walsh if he had ever experienced feeling as insecure in his life as Alan was feeling, but Alan didn't get an answer.  Dr. Walsh, once again, turned the question back on Alan and wanted to explore the question rather than answer it.  This left Alan feeling like he had done something wrong by asking the question, and he felt ashamed.

On the rare occasions when Alan looked back to see Dr. Walsh, he saw a very serious, authoritarian look at Dr. Walsh's face similar to the look that his father used to give him.  During those times, Alan wondered if Dr. Walsh even liked him or thought about him when they weren't in session.

In the coffee shop, Alan shared his frustration with Ed about his therapy sessions, "I just feel like I'm getting nowhere in my therapy, and I worry sometimes that my therapist might not even like me.  He's kind of distant and impersonal in the sessions so it's hard to tell."

Ed looked surprised.  He said his therapist was completely different--she was emotionally engaged, supportive and dynamic in their therapy sessions.  He told Alan that she was active in helping him to get to the underlying emotions (also called primary emotions) that were at the core of his problems, and this helped him to start making changes.

In addition, Ed explained, she occasionally shared stories that let Ed know that she understood his problems.  There were also times, he said, when they laughed in session, and Ed felt how this helped to release tension and open him up to the therapeutic process (see my article: Humor Can Be Effective in Therapy).

Alan was shocked to hear that Ed's experience in psychotherapy was so different from his own, and he asked Ed, "What type of therapy are you doing?"

Ed responded, "My therapist is an experiential therapist who does all kinds of therapy, including AEDP, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis.  Maybe you should have a consultation with an experiential therapist." Alan thought about it for a minute and then asked Ed to get a referral from his therapist to another experiential therapist.

By the following week, Alan was sitting in an experiential therapist's office having a consultation.  He noticed the big difference in how he felt with this therapist immediately.  Not only was she warm and emotionally accessible, she sat facing him (rather than behind him) and he could see that she was emotionally attuned to what he said (see my article: The Therapist's Empathic Attunement Can Be Emotionally Reparative For the Client).

Rather than coming across as a blank screen, Ed realized, this therapist allowed Ed to see that she was intensely engaged in their session.  She also shared with Ed how she experienced him in the session which felt heartfelt and genuine.

In addition, she explained how experiential therapy was different from conventional talk therapy (see my article: What's the Difference Between "Top Down" and "Bottom Up" Approaches to Therapy?).

During his next session with Dr. Walsh, Alan revealed that he had gone for a consultation with another psychotherapist who did experiential therapy.  Hoping that Dr. Walsh would respond, Alan waited in vain.  After several minutes had passed, Alan told Dr. Walsh that he felt the other therapist was more attuned to him, but Dr. Walsh said nothing, which brought back more memories of his silent childhood dinners with his parents.

Alan knew from his prior therapy that there was a termination phase before ending therapy, so he told Dr. Walsh that he would like to have a few more sessions to end therapy and then he wanted to move on to work with an experiential therapist.

During the next three sessions, things remained basically the same in Alan's sessions with Dr. Walsh. He encouraged Alan to talk about what he felt he had gained from their therapy together, and Alan told him that he felt he had gained some insight into his problems.  But what Alan didn't tell him was that, even though he had gained intellectual insight, he felt nothing had changed or shifted in his life. He felt his problems remained the same (see my article: Healing From the Inside Out: Why Understanding Your Problems Isn't Enough).

At the end of the last session with Dr. Walsh, Alan wasn't sure what to do, so he offered to shake Dr. Walsh's hand as he was about to leave.  He noticed how reluctant Dr. Walsh was to extend his hand, which hurt Alan's feelings.  But Dr. Walsh did, reluctantly, extend his hand, shook Alan's hand and told him that he could return to therapy with him in the future.  His words sounded pro forma to Alan, as if Dr. Walsh had said these words many times before.  Then, it was over, and Alan walked out feeling empty.

During the initial stage of experiential therapy, Alan was surprised that his new therapist was so dynamic.  She was so engaged in their conversation that, for the first time in his experience with psychotherapy, Alan didn't feel alone with his problems, which was such a relief to him.  He felt like his new therapist actually cared about him and his well-being.

Not only that.  When he was ready, she helped him to access the underlying emotions involved with his feeling like an unlovable person.  They talked about his relationship with his parents, but the difference, compared to his prior therapy, was that she explained the importance of the mind-body connection and she helped him to connect to his emotions in his body about those experiences (see my article: Experiential Psychotherapy: Learning to Sense Emotions in the Body).

After a while, Alan began to understand that "talking about" his problems only provided him with intellectual insight.  But since experiential therapy used the mind-body connection, in addition to insight, he also had a deep sense of something shifting for him at a core level.  Even more important, he felt a sense of hope that he could change.

Over time, he realized that for him to make the kind of changes that he wanted, he had to make those changes based on his primary emotions, which his new therapist was helping him to access.

Gradually, Alan began to sense a shift in how he felt based on his shifting emotions and the positive regard he felt from his therapist (see my article: What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?).

Conclusion
As illustrated in the clinical vignette above, rather than taking a neutral, impersonal stance, the experiential therapist is attuned to the client and emotionally engaged.

Along with her clinical training and expertise, the experiential therapist uses her own emotional experience to attune to the client and help the client to access the primary emotions that lead to change.

The experiential psychotherapist is aware of the brain's neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change based on learning and experience.

There are many problems with the neutral stance in conventional psychotherapy, including the triggering of earlier emotional experiences of emotional neglect.  This, of course, isn't the intention of the neutral stance, but if often occurs.

In addition, experiential therapy, which uses the mind-body connection, tends to be faster than conventional talk therapy (see my article: Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy
If you have been struggling with unresolved problems, you could benefit from working with an experiential therapist.

Experiential therapy tends to be more effective and work faster than conventional therapy.

Rather than struggling on your own, you could begin to get a sense of emotional relief as you work towards freeing yourself from problems that keep you stuck.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC experiential therapist, who works with individual adults and couples.

I work in an dynamic, interactive and collaborate way using cutting edge modalities, including EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), clinical hypnosis, AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), Somatic Experiencing, contemporary psychodynamic psychotherapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative 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.

Learning to Feel Hopeful in Therapy: Developing a Stronger Sense of Self

In a prior article, Learning to Feel Hopeful in Therapy , I began a discussion about how difficult it can be for psychotherapy clients, who have a history of emotional trauma and who have not been healed by therapy in the past, to allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to feel hopeful in therapy again.

Learning to Feel Hopeful in Therapy:  Traumatized Clients Often Have a Hard Time Opening Up

In that article, I discussed that my experience (and the experiences of many other trauma therapists) has  been that a mind-body oriented approach in therapy tends to be more helpful in terms of healing trauma than regular talk therapy.

I also discussed the ongoing research about the neuroplasticity of the brain, how this research helps us to realize now, more than ever, that the brain can change itself and, as result, there can be a resolution to emotional trauma under the right circumstances in therapy.

For many clients, who have been devastated by emotional trauma and who were unable to trust their primary caregivers as children, the idea that they could expose their emotional hurt and pain to a therapist seems incomprehensible.

From the point of view of many of these individuals:  Why should they trust a therapist when they couldn't trust their primary caregivers who were supposed to love and protect them?

People Who Have Been Traumatized Often Have a Hard Time Trusting in Therapy

Even worse, if they've been to therapy before and they had bad experiences, they're now doubly afraid of opening up again.

As a psychotherapist, I hear this often and I can understand why it would be very frightening for these individuals to open themselves up to be emotionally vulnerable.

Often, these people come to therapy because they're in so much emotional pain and they really long for relief.

At the same time, many of them are so afraid that they're ready to bolt from therapy if, from their perspective, there's a chance of getting hurt again.

Developing Coping Strategies in Therapy:  Developing the Capacity for Emotional Regulation 
When I know that there has been significant trauma and the client is fearful of opening up in therapy, I usually start with helping them to develop the kinds of internal resources and coping skills that will empower them to open up.

Preparation for Trauma Therapy:  Developing Coping Strategies in Therapy

When I help clients through the resourcing phase of treatment, I develop an individualized plan for each client.

Resourcing includes ways that clients can learn emotional regulation, which is so important for people who have suffered trauma, especially early childhood trauma.

Early trauma can leave a child feeling helpless, abandoned and unable to contain the overwhelming emotions related to the trauma.  Often this is because his/her primary caregiver was either unavailable (physically and/or emotionally) or unable (due to her own trauma) or unwilling to help the child to contain overwhelming emotions.

Early Abuse or Neglect Can Result in an Inability Later on as an Adult to Regulate Emotions

As I mentioned in the prior article, early childhood abuse and/or neglect often results in deficits to the orbitofrontal cortex (in the right hemisphere of the brain) at around the time that this part of the brain is developing in an infant.

If there are no other mitigating factors (like another family member who helps the child), this deficit will result in the child's inability to self soothe or regulate difficult emotions.

When this inability to self soothe and self regulate continues into adulthood, which it usually does, the adult often feels bombarded and buffeted by life's many emotional challenges, even if these challenges aren't traumatic per se.

For these children and adults, instead of responding to problems, they automatically react in an impulsive way (see my article:  The Mind-Body Connection: Responding Instead of Reacting to Stress).  This causes many problems in both personal and work-related interpersonal relationships.

So, learning to self soothe and develop a greater capacity for stress is a key component to the initial stage of my work with clients, who never developed these skills, before we do any trauma work.

Although most clients find this very helpful in their lives as well as a preliminary step to doing trauma work, there are some clients who want to begin doing the processing of trauma immediately.

From their perspective, they've been suffering long enough and they want relief now from their emotional problems.

While I understand and empathize with these clients, I also know, based on my clinical experience, that if these clients have little to no tolerance for difficult emotions, they would become too overwhelmed if we began by processing the trauma immediately.

If they become too overwhelmed, they could have one of several adverse reactions.  They could:

• leave treatment prematurely because they can't tolerate what comes up in trauma therapy
• dissociate (become emotionally numb) so that they're no longer aware of what's happening in the therapy and no longer present in the room emotionally for processing their problems
• become rageful, overwhelmingly sad and/or avoidant
• feel powerless 
• feel ashamed
• feel guilty because they think they "should" be able to handle their emotions
• become distrustful of the therapist and the therapy so that there is a treatment impasse
• have physical reactions where their overwhelming emotions become somatized due to the mind-body connection (migraine headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma attacks, and so on)

This list represents only a few of the possible adverse reactions that people could have when the therapist allows them to start processing emotional trauma before these clients have developed the internal skills and resources to handle it.

I don't want to make trauma therapy sound like it's dangerous in and of itself.  I just want to emphasize that it's important for clients to be prepared by the therapist before they start processing trauma.  The preparation phase of treatment shouldn't be skipped over no matter how much a client insists.

Often, by developing a greater emotional capacity and tolerance, clients who start out being impatient to begin learn to be more patient.

On the other hand, there are some clients who come to therapy to work on emotional trauma who have done a lot of work either in a prior therapy or on their own so that they come to trauma therapy with a capacity to begin doing work.  But this is something that the therapist must assess clinically before doing the trauma work.

Empowering Clients to do Trauma Therapy
The preparation (or resourcing) phase of trauma therapy, whether the therapy is EMDR, Somatic Experiencing or clinical hypnosis, helps to empower the client to do trauma therapy.

Empowering Clients in Therapy

It's very gratifying and heart warming for me when I see a client develop in this way.

The client might have come in with very little in the way of the capacity for emotional regulation or frustration tolerance.  But as we work on helping him or her to develop these skills, s/he becomes more confident and open to doing the trauma work.

Strengthening the Rapport and Trust Between Client and Therapist
The preparation phase also helps to strengthen the rapport between the client and therapist, which is necessary for any therapy to be successful.

When the therapist helps the client to develop better coping skills, including emotional regulation and self soothing skills, the client usually feels cared for by the therapist.

For some clients, this might be the first time that they've had the experience of being cared about, so this  is an important step.

Strengthening the Rapport and Trust Between Client and Therapist

Knowing that the therapist cares about them and empathizes with their feelings helps clients to develop trust which, in turn, helps them to feel more hopeful and motivated about the therapy.

This is a very individual process and it will be different for each client.

This doesn't mean that the therapy will go forward without any problems between the therapist and the client.

After all, therapists are human and they make mistakes.  What's more important is how these mistakes get resolved.  In other words, there can be ruptures in therapy, due to misunderstandings or mistakes, but the most important thing is how these ruptures get repaired (see my article:  Psychotherapy: Ruptures and Repairs in Therapy).

Even though going through the repair process, after a therapeutic rupture, can be challenging for both client and therapist, it can also be a healing experience.

It keeps the therapist humble.  It also gives clients, who might only have ever grown up with ruptures and no repairs, an experience that interpersonal difficulties can be repaired so that the therapeutic relationship can continue to develop and flourish.

Aside from what I've discussed above, there are many other ways to develop a stronger sense of self in therapy with the help of an experienced trauma therapist.

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy
After the client has developed the necessary skills and a stronger sense of self during the preparation phase, the processing of the trauma can begin.

The Mind-Body Connection

As I mentioned in my prior article, there are various types of mind-body oriented therapy for trauma therapy, including EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis.

Some treatment modalities work better for some clients than others.  This is why it's important for trauma therapists to have a repertoire of ways to work to help as many clients as possible rather than relying on only one way.

This topic merits a book rather than a couple of articles.   I hope I've given people, who might be interested, a sense of what works in trauma therapy and how clients (whether they're reluctant to feel hopeful initially or they're prone to jump in too quickly) can be helped by a therapist who is a trauma specialist.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you've been unable to work through your problems on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping clients to overcome difficult emotional problems.

Getting Help in Therapy

Clients, who have worked through their emotional trauma, often describe a sense of freedom with more energy to focus on what they want in their lives.  They often go on to have more fulfilling lives once they're no longer struggling with emotional difficulties.

Rather than struggling on your own, you owe it to yourself to get professional help from a licensed therapist so you too can live a more fulfilling life.

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

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome trauma.

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

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

Learning to Feel Hopeful in Therapy

For many clients who start psychotherapy to deal with trauma, especially longstanding trauma stemming from significant unmet emotional needs from childhood, it can be difficult to feel hopeful that therapy will make a difference and help them to change their lives.

Learning to Feel Hopeful in Therapy:  Clients with Trauma Can Find It Difficult to Feel Hopeful

As a psychotherapist in NYC, I've found this to be especially true of clients who have been in many different types of psychotherapy before and who have experienced no resolution to their trauma.

Psychotherapy Clients with a Fear of Being Vulnerable and Only a Glimmer of Hope
Often, clients come to see me because they know that, in addition to using talk therapy, I'm also an EMDR therapist as well as a hypnotherapist and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

These clients usually come to see me because they've haven't experienced relief from their emotional trauma in traditional talk therapy.  And although there might only be a small part of them that brings them back to therapy, often they feel too emotionally vulnerable to really allow themselves to feel a sense of hope that things could change for them.

Clients with Longstanding Unresolved Trauma Can Feel Too Afraid to be Hopeful in Therapy

This is, of course, understandable when you consider that they've been disappointed too many times in their life, including disappointments in therapy.  It becomes hard for them to trust others and, often, hard for them to trust themselves.

It's also not unusual for people to come to therapy and not even know that they've been emotionally traumatized.  This is especially common if they've experienced complex trauma or they've lived their lives since childhood experiencing one crisis after another.  They might be too emotionally numb to feel a lot more than fear, anger and apprehension.

They might only know in some vague way that they feel "stuck" in their lives, but they don't make the connection between their current problems and their personal history (see my article:  When You Just Don't Feel Right and It's Hard to Put Your Feelings Into Words).

Psychoeducation in Therapy
Knowing this, I usually provide clients with psychoeducation at the start of therapy about the different types of treatment modalities that I use and any research about the efficacy of these modalities.

I also tell them about my own evolution as a psychotherapist who originally trained in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy and who went on to train in different types of trauma therapy, like EMDR, clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing.

I can also tell new clients what I have observed in my psychotherapy private practice with regard to the different types of therapy and how it has been my experience over the years that a mind-body orientation in therapy tends to work better and faster for most people as compared to regular talk therapy.

Intellectual Insight in Therapy Usually Isn't Enough to Heal Trauma
This isn't to say that psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy don't work.  However, most of the time, these forms of therapy don't resolve trauma.

Clients in talk therapy often develop intellectual insight into their problems, which is important, but their trauma often remains unresolved.

Intellectual Insight in Therapy Usually Isn't Enough to Heal Emotional Trauma

Clients, who have developed only intellectual insight, often feel that there must be something really wrong with them because their insight doesn't bring about change.

Clients, who have a history of trauma, often carry within themselves the burden of guilt and shame to begin with because of their trauma.  They blame themselves for what happened to them.

So, when therapy only brings insight and not healing, they often blame themselves for that too which, in many ways, is a retraumatization.

But the problem usually isn't with them--it's a problem with the therapy that doesn't get to the core of their problems.

Overcoming Emotional Trauma:  Interpersonal Neurobiology Points the Way
Due to the relatively new field of interpersonal neurobiology and the work of professionals like Allan Schore, Ph.D. and Daniel Siegel, MD, we now know that early childhood emotional trauma and attachment problems with the primary caregiver can cause deficits in the right hemisphere of the brain, specifically the right orbitofrontal cortex and that regular talk therapy often doesn't help to heal these deficits (see:  Affect Dysregulation and Disorder of the Self by Allan Schore, Ph.D. and Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain by Dan Siegel, MD, which are both part of the Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology, as well as The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, MD).

Healing Trauma with the Mind-Body Connection

The Neuroplasticity of the Brain
Not long ago neuroscientists believed that, over time, brain cells died and the brain just continued to lose cells without being able to regenerate cells or to make changes (hence the old saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks").

Fortunately, we also now know about the neuroplasticity of the brain.  Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability, under the right circumstances, to reorganize itself throughout the life cycle.

The Neuroplasticity of the Brain

So, even in circumstances where there have been deficits in the right orbitofrontal cortex (right hemisphere of the brain) due to childhood trauma of early abuse or neglect, the adult brain can still change later in life to make up for these emotional deficits.

The discovery that the brain can change itself was a very hopeful discovery (see:  The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Trauma from the Frontier of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, MD).

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy
To heal these trauma-related deficits, a treatment modality that takes into account the mind-body connection is required, like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR or clinical hypnosis, among others (see my article:  Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window into the Unconscious Mind).

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy

Of course, there are no guarantees that therapy is going to resolve a particular person's problems.  So, while I'm enthusiastic about the different types of therapy that I use, I'm also honest that there's no way to predict in advance if therapy is going to work.

Over the course of a therapy, I often use a combination of mind-body oriented treatment modalities because no one form of therapy works for every single client.

Also, even when a particular treatment modality is working for a while, there can be a treatment impasse and, in order to overcome an impasse, I'll switch to a different modality that is better with that particular obstacle in treatment.

Sometimes, the switch to another modality might only be temporary to overcome the impasse, and other times the client might prefer it so we continue with it (see my article:  Overcoming an Impasse in Trauma Therapy).

Emotional Trauma and Hopelessness
Getting back to clients' problems with feeling hopeful:  There are different types of challenges that clients face with regard to feeling too afraid to feel hopeful, including:

• feeling powerless
• feeling unlovable or unworthy (see my article:  Overcoming Emotional Pain: Feeling Unlovable)
• having early, and possibly later, experiences of being physically and/or emotionally abandoned
• feeling despair
• feeling helpless
• experiencing social isolation
• experiencing cognitive distortions (for an example of this see my article:  Overcoming All or Nothing Thinking)
• feeling depressed
• feeling anxious and overwhelmed
• being unable to identify and express how they feel
• unconscious decisions (see my article:  What Unconscious Decisions Have You Made That Are Impacting Your Life?

and so on.

In an upcoming article, I'll discuss how clients, who come to therapy feeling too afraid to be hopeful, can overcome this challenge.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're feeling overwhelmed by your emotions, whether your problems are related to longstanding unresolved trauma or more recent emotional problems, you're not alone.

Getting Help in Therapy

Although you might find it difficult to ask for help in therapy, you can attend a consultation with a licensed mental health professional to see if you and the therapist are suited for each other (see my article:  How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than continuing to suffer on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who is knowledgeable about mind-body oriented therapy.

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

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome emotional trauma.

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

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