What is Parentification and Why Is It Traumatic?

Many clients who come to see me for unresolved trauma grew up as parentified children (see my article: What is the Impact of Parentification on Adult Relationships?).

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

What Are Parentified Children?

Parentification is a role reversal between parents and children.

Parentified children are children who grew up taking on adult responsibilities in their family. 

These responsibilities might include:

• Providing emotional support to their parents 

• Taking care of younger siblings as a regular part of their chores

• Taking on major household chores that are normally done by adults

• Taking on the stress of financial problems and other major stressors in the family

• Mediating arguments between their parents and/or other adult family members

• Paying bills

• Making doctor's appointments, and so on

This often occurs when children's parents either can't or won't assume parental responsibilities and they might also unable to take care of themselves.

What Are the Signs of Parentification?

Some of the signs of parentification include:

• Children being praised by their parents and other adults for being "so good" or "so responsible" when they take on tasks beyond their developmental stage

• Children feeling they have to be the peacemakers in the family

• Getting in trouble with their parents when they wanted to engage in children's activities because parents wanted them to stay home to take care of adult responsibilities

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

• As an adult not being able to remember being allowed to be a child

• As an adult feeling they were given responsibilities beyond their capacity as a child

• As an adult feeling they had to "grow up fast" (beyond their developmental capacities)

• As an adult only feeling comfortable in the role of a caretaker to a partner or spouse 

• As an adult feeling they have to be so "self reliant" to the point of not trusting others, including significant others, to come through for them

Why Causes Parentification?

Parentification can occur for many reasons.

In many instances the parents of parentified children grew up as parentified children themselves so it seems normal and familiar to them.  

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

Since they were parentified children, these parents might never have learned to manage their emotions because they were preoccupied with taking care of their parents' emotions.  

As a result, it's not unusual to find a long history of parentified children from one generation to the next.

In other instances parents might have mental health or substance abuse problems and they are unable to take on parental responsibilities so one or more of their children take on these responsibilities.

Why is Parentification Traumatic?

Parentified children often feel they are special when they are children because they feel they are helping their parents and often get complimented for it. But, as adults, they might begin to sense that something didn't go right when they were children (see my article: Why is Past Trauma Affecting You Now?).

For instance, when they hear other adults talk about their childhood, many adults who grew up as parentified children sense they missed out on being a child.  For many people this is the beginning of their questioning why they took on their parents' responsibilities and what affect it might have had on them (see my article: How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

Parentification also causes the disruption of the child's natural maturational process which often leads to negative consequences for their long term health and mental health including anxiety and depression and chronic health problems.

Parentification Can Cause Anxiety and Depression

In addition, as previously mentioned, parentification often develops into intergenerational trauma as the trauma is perpetuated from one generation to the next.

How Can You Heal From the Trauma of Parentification?

There are specific types of therapy, known as trauma therapy, for parentification and other types of developmental trauma:

EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Ego States Therapy (similar to Internal Family Systems Therapy or Parts Work Therapy)

AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

Somatic Experiencing Therapy 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Parentification is more common than you might think.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Even though parentification might have been normalized in your family, you might realize it had a negative emotional impact on you.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a qualified trauma therapist so you can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience, I work with individual adults and couples to help them 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.

The Impact of Parentification Trauma on Adult Romantic Relationships

Adults who were parentified children often have problems in adult romantic relationships due to the childhood trauma of having to act as a parent to one or both of their parents (see my article: Overcoming Childhood Trauma that Affects Adult Relationships).

The Impact of Parentification Trauma on Adult Relationships

What is Parentification?

Parentification occurs when parents use their children for emotional or practical support instead of providing support to the children.  As a result, the children, who aren't psychologically or emotionally equipped to do this, become their parents' caregivers (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

Parentification is a form of emotional neglect because the child doesn't get what s/he needs from their parents and, instead, must try to extend themselves beyond their developmental abilities to take care of their parents.

Instrumental Parentification and Emotional Parentification

There are two types of parentification:  

Instrumental Parentification: This is when children take on the parental role of providing practical care which is beyond their emotional and psychological capabilities.  

This could involve:

• Taking care of the parents, siblings or other relatives because the parents are unable or unwilling to do it, including taking responsibility for relatives who are physically or mentally disabled or who have a mental illness

• Assuming household responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, doing the laundry and other similar responsibilities

Instrumental Parentification

• Paying household bills

• Serving as a translator for parents who are unable to speak the primary language of the country where the family resides

• Other practical tasks that are usually handled by adults

Emotional Parentification: This is when children take on the parental role of providing emotional support to parents. 

This could involve:

• Listening to parents talk about their problems, which is beyond the child's capabilities

Emotional Parentification

• Providing parents with advice relating to the parents' problems

• Serving as a confidante to the parents

• Taking on the adult role as a mediator between the parents or other adults

• Providing emotional support to the parents

The Trauma of Parentification

When children take on their parents' emotional and/or practical responsibilities on an ongoing basis, this is a form of relational trauma because there is a role reversal between children and parents.  

Also, as previously mentioned, if the child's emotional and practical needs aren't being met, this is a form of neglect.

Parentification can result in a variety of mental health issues including:

• Problems with trust
• Anger management issues
• Problems with emotional regulation
• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Substance misuse
• Gambling
• Eating disorders
• Problems forming or maintaining adult relationships, especially romantic relationships

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases, illustrates the traumatic effects of parentification and how trauma therapy can help:

Jim

By the time Jim was 10 years old, he had taken over many of his parents' responsibilities in the household because his father, who was an active alcoholic and unemployed, would disappear for weeks, and his mother tried to support the family by working three jobs.

As the oldest child, Jim did the laundry, cleaned the house, helped his siblings with their homework, put them to sleep, dressed them in the morning and made sure they ate breakfast, among other things.

He was so tired that he often fell asleep in class. When his teacher tried to talk to his mother about it over the phone, she discovered that Jim's mother wasn't receptive to hearing about it. 

She told the teacher, "If Jim didn't take care of the younger kids and do the household chores, everything would fall apart. I don't have anyone else to help out and we can't afford to hire a housekeeper, so that's just the way it is." Then Jim's mother hung up.

When Jim's mother was at home, she often complained and cried about how awful her life turned out and how she hated being married to an alcoholic.  Jim would listen patiently and try to be supportive, but he didn't know what to say.

Then, she would shower him to praise and tell him, "You're so good. You're my little man," which made Jim feel good.

But when his father was home, Jim noticed that, despite her complaints to him in private, his mother would go out of her way to appease and cater to the father.  This confused and angered Jim. He couldn't understand why his mother didn't hold the father accountable.  

What was even more confusing to him was that her attitude towards him was very different when his father wasn't home. She doted so much on his father that it was as if Jim and his siblings didn't exist. Instead of confiding in Jim and praising him, his mother would often go along with his father in being critical of him, which hurt Jim's feelings.  

Sometimes Jim felt like he had two mothers--the one who was kind and praiseful towards him when his father wasn't home and the other one who ignored him and joined in his father's criticism of him when his father was home.

Despite this, Jim remained loyal to his mother and disdainful towards his father.  When it was time for him to go to college, Jim chose a school close to home so he could live at home and be close to his mother to help out.

By then, his father had quit drinking because he was having health problems and his doctor warned him that if he didn't stop drinking, he would die.  So, things were a little more stable at home and his father got a job as a janitor.

Throughout high school and college, Jim didn't date. He had a few male friends, but he felt shy and self conscious around girls.  Sometimes his friends teased him about being "a mama's boy," but he didn't care because he knew his mother still needed him at home.

After he graduated college and he started a new job, he met a woman at his organization who was from a different department. Jane was friendly and outgoing and she asked Jim to go to lunch.  Soon after that, they began dating.

Problems arose in their relationship a few months after they started dating whenever Jim cancelled their plans when he felt his mother needed him.  These cancellations never involved emergencies, but Jim treated these incidents as if they were emergencies,which angered Jane. So, Jane gave him an ultimatum to either attend therapy or she would leave him.

Jim began therapy to deal with feeling triangulated between his mother and his girlfriend.  This is how he learned about parentification and how it affected him in his relationship with Jane as well as his reluctance, before dating Jane, to date at all.

Trauma Therapy

As part of trauma therapy, Jim did EMDR therapy to help him to work through his history of trauma and the impact it had on his romantic relationship.

The work in trauma therapy was neither easy or quick but, over time, Jim began to heal from his childhood trauma. He was also able to differentiate himself psychologically from his mother so he could thrive as an individual and in his relationship.

Conclusion

Adults who were parentified often have a difficult time in adult romantic relationships.

The good news is that the trauma of parentification can be worked through in trauma therapy.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you are struggling with a history of parentification, you're not alone.

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to work through trauma.

So, instead of struggling on your own, seek help in trauma therapy 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 Therapy.

I work with individual adults and couples (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more abou tme, 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.

Common Reactions to the COVID-19 Crisis: Fear and Anxiety

Aside from worrying about the COVID-19 crisis, many people are concerned that their reactions make them feel "weak" or "abnormal" or "crazy," but most of the reactions that people are describing are common and many people are experiencing the same reactions.  In a prior article, I discussed the common reaction of grief during this crisis.  In this article, I'm discussing fear and anxiety in an effort to normalize these feelings (see my articles: Coping and Staying Calm During the COVID-19 Crisis, Accepting Your Negative Emotions During a Crisis, Common Reactions During the COVID-19 Crisis: Waves of Grief and Empowering Yourself During the COVID-19 Crisis).

Common Reaction to the COVID-19 Crisis: Fear and Anxiety

A Common Reaction to COVID-19: Fear and Anxiety
Many people are trying to make sense of their reactions to the current pandemic.  Since we have never experienced anything like this during modern times, it's sometimes hard to know what to feel or to distinguish one emotion from another.

First, let's recognize that there's a difference between fear and anxiety.  Briefly stated, fear is about a known event and anxiety is about an anticipated event (for a more detailed explanation, see my article: What's the Difference Between Fear and Anxiety?).

Some people talk about feeling "strange" or like they're in a "Sci Fi movie."  Many people feel the surreal nature of the experience as they try to grapple with the enormity of the crisis.

Along with many other common reactions, fear and anxiety are the ones that most people mention.  It's easy to understand why people are fearful and anxious on many different levels due to concerns about their

• Health
• Emotional well-being
• Children and grandchildren
• Jobs
• Financial situation
• Future prospects

and so on.

Self Judgment and Self Criticism About Feeling Fear and Anxiety
People who wouldn't ever think to judge someone else for being fearful and anxious often take a harsh stance with themselves about feeling the same emotions (see my article: Self Blame and the Internal Critic).

They think they should do better, especially if they grew up being a parentified child where they took care of their parents emotional well-being instead of being taken care of by their parents (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

These are people who, as children, had a heavy burden placed on them which was far beyond their development, so they're accustomed to having unrealistic and unreasonable expectations of themselves.  Unfortunately, these unrealistic expectatons don't stop when they become adults.  They continue to have the same patterns.

Many of them might have internalized a critical voice from one or both of their parents who might also have been parentified children to their own parents, so this appears "normal" to them.

Children who grew up being parentified children often just can't give themselves a break.  It's not unusual for them to think they have to do things and react to things in a "perfect" way, and anything that's less than perfect isn't good enough (see my article: The Connection Between Perfectionism and Shame).

Using Defense Mechanisms to Avoid Feeling Fear and Anxiety
Many people use one or more of the following defense mechanisms to avoid experiencing their emotions (see my article: Understnding Defense Mechanisms).

• Denial About Fear and Anxiety: For many people, acknowledging their fear and anxiety makes them feel too vulnerable.  Instead of acknowledging their feelings, they deny them instead, "I don't feel fearful or anxious.  What good would that do me?"  So their feelings get swept under the carpet and often manifests in physical or psychological ailments, like headaches, bodily aches and pains, depression and so on.  

• Rationalizing Away Fear and Anxiety: Another reaction that I often see is for people, who are harsh with themselves, compare themselves to others who are much worse off than them, "I don't have any reason to feel fearful or anxious.  Look at Mary, she has it so much worse than me."  They don't recognize that Mary's situation doesn't negate their own and that they're entitled to their own emotional reactions.  Instead of allowing themselves to feel their emotions, they minimize their reactions by comparing themselves to someone who is much worse.  However, if we carried this to its logical conclusion, each person could find someone who is much worse off as a way to blame themselves for having what turns out to be a common response (see my article: Rationalization as a Form of Denial and Self Deception).

• Projecting Their Fear and Anxiety onto Someone Else: Instead of allowing themselves to feel their emotions, people who use projection project them onto someone else, "I'm not feeling anxious or afraid.  You're the one who feels that way."

• Intellectualizing as a Way to Avoid Feeling Fear and Anxiety: People who tend to intellectualize as their defense against feeling fear and anxiety are usually able to talk about crises in terms of facts, logical, and data.  But they are too uncomfortable to talk about their emotions because it makes them feel too vulnerable.

How Does a Person Learn to Accept Their Emotions Instead of Defending Against Them?
One answer to this question for many people is to receive psychoeducation in an article like this that their emotions are a common reaction to the current situation. Also, if they talk to another people about it, they will often hear others say the same thing.

People who have unresolved trauma will need more help.  They need to work through their childhood trauma first to have some self compassion about their current emotions.

On a logical level, many people who were parentified children can see that it makes sense (logically) that they feel as they do.  But on an emotional level, they still judge themselves, and that's the old trauma getting triggered, "You should be able to deal with this without feeling afraid of anxious."

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have a history of trauma that is getting triggered now, working with a trauma therapist, who can help you to work through the past trauma as well as helping you with your current fears and anticipatory anxiety, will allow you to cope better.

Many psychotherapists, including me, are doing online therapy sessions (also called telehealth, telemental health and teletherapy) during this period of time (see my article: The Advantages of Online Therapy When You Can't See Your Therapist in Person).

Rather than struggling on your own, seeking help can help to alleviate your fears ans anxiety.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

As previously mentioned, I'm currently providing online therapy.

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 Accept That You Can't Control Your Loved Ones

While it's understandable that you would want to spare your loved ones from experiencing pain or misfortune, if you try to control the lives of people close to you, you will need to learn what many other people have learned before you--you can't control anyone else's life. 

Psychotherapy can help you to understand why you have a need to do this, help you work through the issues involved and to eventually accept that you need to focus on yourself (see my articles: When Someone You Love Rejects Your Help and Avoiding Codependency With Your Children).

Learning to Accept That You Can't Control Your Loved Ones 

If you think you can see clearly what a loved one needs and your offer to help is rejected, it can be a very difficult thing to accept.  Your intention, of course, is to help, but if your loved one doesn't want your help, you will need to back off--no matter how noble your intentions might be (see my article: Overcoming the Need to Be Everyone's Caretaker).

This can be especially difficult with close family members when you're anxious about their well-being and how they're living their lives.  But when your loved ones tell you that they don't want your help and they're of legal age and competent enough to make their own decisions, you could ruin your relationship by continuing to push.

I see many clients in my psychotherapy private practice in New York City who feel anxious and heartbroken that family members refuse to take their advice or allow them to help.  Their family members see their offer to help as being controlling behavior.

The more they try to help, the more their loved ones push them away.  In some cases, a family member can become estranged because of the strain of this dynamic.

Fictional Clinical Vignette:  Learning to Accept That You Can't Control Your Loved Ones
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates this dilemma and how psychotherapy can help:

After Beth found out from her older daughter, Nell, that her 21 year old son, Rich, was abusing painkillers, she spoke to her son and offered to arrange to send him to a drug rehabilitation center.  Although Rich didn't deny that he was abusing painkillers, he was annoyed that his older sister divulged this information to their mother, brushed off his mother's suggestion and told her that he knew that he could stop on his own, without help, at any time.

In Beth's family of origin, her father and older brother both abused drugs and alcohol.  This caused Beth, her mother and Beth's siblings much suffering when Beth was a child.  Her father and brother both eventually got clean and sober when Beth was in her 20s, but their addictions precipitated a divorce between the mother and father and alienation with most other family members.

Since Beth's mother was incapacitated most of the time by her depression, as the oldest child, Beth assumed responsibility for her family at an early age.  By the time she was 12, she was cooking and cleaning for her family because her mother stayed in bed all day.  And sometimes Beth went to the local bar to find either her father or brother (or sometimes both) to bring them back home (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

At the time, Beth didn't think this was unusual. She didn't understand that she was functioning as a parentified child.  She saw herself as being "strong" and able to handle whatever came up in the family.  At a young age, she felt she could resolve any family problem (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

Beth was the one, when she was in her early 20s, who arranged, at various times, for her father and brother to attend inpatient treatment.  When her father's primary counselor at the rehabilitation center explained the concept of codependency to Beth and recommended that she attend Al-Anon meetings, Beth dismissed this.  Her feeling was that she wasn't the one with the problems, so she didn't see why she should go to Al-Anon meetings.

When Beth couldn't persuade Rich to go to inpatient treatment, she asked her father to come speak with Rich.  By this time, her father had over 20 years of sobriety and he was still active in the 12 Step community.  He spoke with Rich one-on-one and tried to persuade him to get help, but Rich was angry that his mother told his grandfather about his addiction, and he stopped talking to Beth.

Beth worried about Rich night and day.  She hardly slept.  She blamed herself for divorcing his father, who was an active alcoholic who broke contact with Beth, Nell and Rich.  She thought about all the things that she "should" have done to prevent her son from getting addicted to painkillers, and she continued to try to persuade him to get help--to no avail.

Several weeks later, Beth received a call from the police that Rich was in a car accident and he was arrested for driving while impaired.  He explained that her son was taken to the hospital where he would be medically evaluated and and evaluated for a detox.

After Beth got off the phone, she was so upset that she was shaking.  She blamed herself for not doing more for Rich.  She felt she could have prevented this accident and arrest, but she wasn't forceful or persuasive enough.

At the hospital, she found out that, aside from minor bruises, Rich wasn't seriously injured and no one else was hurt.  The doctors told her that it would take about 10 days or so to detox Rich from the painkillers.  During that time, Beth hired an attorney, who recommended to Rich that, as soon as he was able, he go to a drug rehabilitation center to deal with his addiction and to show the judge that he was serious about getting clean.

Rich completed the hospital detox and a 28 day stay at a rehabilitation center.  Since it was his first offense, the judge agreed that Rich should go to rehab and a court representative would monitor his treatment.

While he was in rehab, Beth and Nell went to visit him twice.  They met with the primary counselor, who recommended Al-Anon for them.  Both Beth and Nell scoffed at the idea.

Following inpatient treatment, Rich attended outpatient treatment and he went to 12 Step meetings with his grandfather.  Eventually, he obtained a sponsor and he began to turn his life around.

Even though Rich was doing much better, Beth continued to relive the moment she received the phone call from the police officer.  She ruminated about how her son could have been killed in that car accident and she blamed herself.  This went on for months, until finally, Beth's best friend, who listened to Beth blame herself over and over again, recommended that Beth seek help in therapy.

Normally, Beth wouldn't even consider attending psychotherapy, but she knew she needed to do something, and she didn't know what else to do.  She was a nervous wreck, and she couldn't sleep.  So she contacted a psychotherapist to begin therapy.

Learning to Accept That You Can't Control Your Loved Ones

After Beth told her psychotherapist about Rich's addiction, how she tried to help him and how guilty she felt, about the car accident and her family's history with addiction, Beth's psychotherapist explained to Beth that her traumatic family history was getting played out with her son.  She told Beth that she functioned as the family rescuer in her family of origin and she was trying to function in that same role with her adult son, but it wasn't working.

Her psychotherapy explained the concepts of codependency to Beth and helped Beth to make connections between her family history and her current situation with Rich.  She also explained to Beth that she functioned as a parentified child in her family because neither her mother or father were able to function as parents.

As Beth listened to her psychotherapist, she realized that this all made sense, but she didn't know how to stop trying to control her son.  She explained to her psychotherapist that, even though he was randomly tested at his outpatient program, all his tests were negative and he seemed to be doing well, she continued to try to monitor his behavior.  She worried whenever he went out and she was vigilant for any signs of a relapse.  This created tension between Beth and her son, and he told her that he planned to move out with sober friends as soon as he found a job.

Beth's psychotherapist recommended that Beth start focusing on herself, specifically learning to de-stress with meditation and breathing exercises that her psychotherapist taught her.  She also recommended that Beth work on her unresolved childhood trauma with EMDR therapy (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy? and How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain).

Beth had little confidence that her psychotherapist's recommendations would work, but she didn't know what else to do, so she practiced the meditation and breathing exercises.  She also began taking a yoga class and she developed a wind down routine to sleep better.

When Rich told Beth that he found a new full time job and he had plans to move in with sober friends, she became highly anxious.  When she saw her psychotherapist, she fretted that if Rich moved out, she wouldn't be able to monitor how he was doing and she would worry all the time.

Her psychotherapist was empathetic towards Beth.  She understood that Beth was experiencing anxiety about the current situation and her history of family trauma with two addicted family members was also getting triggered.

By the next session, Beth and her psychotherapist began processing her recent traumatic experience with her son's addiction to help Beth's mind and nervous system to get caught up with the fact that her son was actually doing well and she was the one who was still stuck at the point when she found out that her son was abusing painkillers.

Over time, EMDR therapy helped Beth to "update" her emotional experience with her son.  Before doing EMDR, Beth knew objectively that her son was sober and he was doing much better.  But on an emotional level, she was still stuck back in that moment when Nell told her that Rich was abusing painkillers and also in the moment when she got the call from the police officer.

After doing EMDR therapy, over time, Beth gradually worked through her traumatic family history.  She felt compassion for the young child that she had been when she was taking on adult responsibilities for her family.  She could look back now and realize what an impossible task that was and what a toll it took on her emotionally.

Learning to Accept That You Can't Control Your Loved Ones

After Beth worked through her history of trauma, she and her psychotherapist tackled her current worries about her son.  

Having worked through the earlier history of trauma, working on her feelings about her son was, although not easy, easier than she would have expected.  She was able to know and feel that Rich was doing better.  

She told her psychotherapist that she could now feel the uselessness of her worrying (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

She also felt and accepted on an emotional level that she couldn't control her son or anyone else--she could only control herself.  Although this made her feel sad in a way, she said she also felt relieved because she knew there was nothing for her to do now.

Beth continued to focus on herself.  She eventually went to Al-Anon meetings to get group support to help her not to backslide.

After she stopped trying to monitor Rich's behavior, Beth and Rich got closer and they were able to repair their mother-son relationship.

Conclusion
Accepting that you can't control your loved ones' life can be one of your biggest challenges, especially if you grew up being a parentified child as in the fictional vignette above.

You can offer your loved ones love and emotional support, but you can't live their lives for them or try to control what they do.

By focusing too much on your loved ones' problems, you not only risk alienating them, but you also risk neglecting yourself.

Sometimes, you have accept that your loved ones can do what's necessary to take care of themselves when they're ready.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you try to control your loved ones' behavior, you might have a long history of trying to rescue family members in your family of origin.  

If you were successful in rescuing family members, you might really  believe you can also control loved ones in their current life.  If you were unsuccessful in rescuing family members, you might feel compelled to "get it right this time" in your current situation.

Trying to control loved ones when they reject your help, as in the scenario above, is counterproductive and the situation tends to spiral down.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome codependency issues so that you can stop trying to control what you can't control and focus on taking care of yourself (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A trauma therapist can help you to overcome trauma related to the current situation as well as unresolved trauma related to the past (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you accept that you can't control anyone else and learn to let go, you can feel freer and live a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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

Why Your Child Can't Be Your Best Friend

In my previous article, Caregiving For a Depressed Mother as a Child and a Depressed Spouse as an Adult, I discussed how early dynamics between parent and child often get recreated in adult relationships.  In this article, I'm focusing on a particular dynamic between parent and child where the parent sees the child as his or her "best friend" and the child takes on the parental role (also known as the parentified child) and the parent takes on the child role.

Why Your Child Can't Be Your Best Friend

To explore how this parent-child dynamic develops, it's important to realize that the parent who sees the child as a best friend usually was in that same role with one or both of her parents as a child.  In other words, this is often an unconscious repetition, so it doesn't seem unusual to the parent.  On the contrary, it's very familiar because he or she lived through it as a child and considered it to be "normal."

The parent who treats their child as a best friend often didn't get her emotional needs met as a child because of her own role as a best friend to her parent (I'm saying "her," but this is also true of relationships between a parent and a son).

This dynamic can continue to repeat itself intergenerationally, so there can be three or four generations where the children are expected to focus on the emotional needs of the parent instead of the parent taking care of the emotional needs of the child.

This comes at a tremendous emotional cost to the child because she subordinates her emotional needs to the needs of the parent.  On the face of it, this might seem like an impossible task for a child, but many children learn to sacrifice their emotional needs for  their parent's needs, and they become very good at it--to their own detriment.

So, if this is happening intergenerationally, how can a family break this unhealthy cycle?

Well, it often occurs when the child approaches adulthood and struggles to develop a healthy sense of autonomy.  Although this is a healthy sign for the child, it can wreak havoc between the parent and adult child if the parent isn't willing to allow the child to be more independent.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized vignette which explores these dynamics:

Clarissa and Clara
Clarissa started therapy soon after she began submitting her college applications to out of state colleges.

Why Your Child Can't Be Your Best Friend

Clarissa was an only child who was still living at home.  Her mother, Clara, was a single parent.  At the point when Clarissa came to therapy, they were arguing about the fact that Clarissa wanted to go away to college.  Although Clarissa stood her ground with her mother, inwardly she felt deeply ambivalent about leaving her mother.

Not only did she fear that her mother would be very lonely without her but Clarissa knew that her mother relied on her when Clara felt especially depressed and discouraged.

On the one hand, Clarissa wanted to be away at college to experience more freedom and have the campus experience before she settled down in a career.  On an intuitive level, she knew this was what she needed emotionally and socially.  But, on the other hand, she felt guilty leaving her mother alone.

When they argued, Clarissa tried not to show her ambivalence because she feared that she would cave in to her mother's wishes and sacrifice her own needs.  But, internally, she was struggling with the possibility of letting go of her role as her mother's best friend.

As Clarissa explored her family history with her psychotherapist, she began to realize for the first time that she and her mother had a similar dynamic to her mother and maternal grandmother.

Similar to the maternal grandmother, Clara was in her mid-teens when she had Clarissa.  They both raised their children without the biological father with the help of their mothers. Clara was her mother's best friend and confidant and they usually did everything together.

When Clarissa revealed to Clara that she wanted to go away to college, Clara was stunned.  She couldn't understand why Clarissa would want to leave their town where their family had roots for many generations.

Clara had always hoped that she and Clarissa would have a similar relationship to the one that Clara had with her mother.  She told her that Clarissa that she considered it a form of betrayal that she would want to move away to college for four years.

Clarissa talked to her therapist about how she grew up listening to her mother's problems.  Even as a young child, she tried to help her mother to overcome feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

Even though she was only a young child, she felt she did a good job of shoring her mother up emotionally.  But now, she wanted something more--something for herself for a change.  She asked her therapist, "Am I being selfish?"

Over time, Clarissa's therapist helped her to work through her ambivalence to see that what she wanted for herself was healthy and necessary for her well-being.

Being able to look at her situation through her therapist's eyes, Clarissa could see, for the first time, that what was expected of her as a child wasn't healthy for her.  At the same time, she had a lot of compassion for her mother.

When Clarissa felt ready, she asked Clara to come to a therapy session with her.  Although Clara said she "didn't believe in therapy," she came to the session with a wary eye on the therapist.

When Clarissa explained to Clara why she wanted to go away to college, Clara burst into tears.  Although they had had this same talk many times before on their own, Clara realized that Clarissa made up her mind and it was final.

Clara explained to Clarissa and the therapist that she wanted what was best for her daughter, but she felt it would be unbearable for her to be home alone, especially since her mother died the year before.  She would have no one.

Clara idealized her relationship with her mother and told them that, from the time Clarissa was born, she wanted the same relationship with Clarissa that she and her mother had.  She was her mother's best friend and she hoped that Clarissa would be her best friend always.

But now that Clarissa wanted to go away, she saw all of this falling apart for her.  She couldn't understand why Clarissa couldn't go to the local college so they could remain together.  The therapist suggested that Clara could benefit from seeing her own therapist, but Clara brushed this off.

When Clarissa came to her next therapy session, she told her therapist that she felt more confident in her decision, even though she still felt guilty about leaving her mother.

Why Your Child Can't Be Your Best Friend

Eventually, Clarissa went off to college.  She continued to work on the emotional separation process from her mother with a therapist at the counseling center.

Her relationship with her mother remained fraught until her mother began developing her own friendships and interests in her church.

Over time, they were able to repair their relationship.  Clarissa enjoyed her new sense of autonomy and she felt that she was finally taking care of her own emotional needs.

Conclusion
When parents have their own unmet emotional needs from childhood, and especially if they were parentified children with one or both parents, they are more likely to try to get their unmet needs through their children.

This is usually an emotional blind spot for the parent.   In most cases the parent is unaware that she is doing harm to the child.  She's just doing what feels right, often based on her own childhood.

Children will often try to extend themselves beyond their emotional maturity and sacrifice their own needs in order to please their parents.

Even when the child attempts to resist being a parentified child, he or she often feels guilty about not being able to meet their parent's needs.

In order for the child to grow emotionally, the child needs to assert his or her own needs by resisting the parent's attempt to make the child their emotional caregiver.  Resisting the parent is usually very difficult and beyond what most children are able to do.

In order for the parent to grow, the parent needs to mourn that s/he didn't get what s/he needed as a child and find other healthy ways of getting emotional needs met instead of depending on the child.

Getting Help in Therapy
It's often difficult for the child to assert his/her needs for fear of losing a parent's love.  Similarly, it's often difficult for a parent to resist depending upon the child emotionally.

For parent and child, psychotherapy is often helpful to overcome these challenges.

If you're struggling with these issues, rather than struggling alone, you could benefit from getting help in therapy.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to negotiate these emotional challenges so you can change, grow and lead a more fulfilling life.

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

I have worked with adult children and parents, both individually and together, to help them overcome these emotional challenges.

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.

Caregiving For a Depressed Mother as a Child and a Depressed Spouse as an Adult

People often unconsciously choose a spouse who has similar characteristics to one or both parents (see my article:  Overcoming the Guilt You Feel For Not Being Able to Heal Your Parent's Emotional Wounds and How to Stop Being the "Rescuer" in Your Family of Origin).

Caregiving For a Depressed Mother as a Child and a Depressed Spouse as an Adult

A child, who was the emotional caregiver for a depressed parent, will often unconsciously choose a spouse who is depressed and recreate a similar caregiving dynamic with the spouse.

The following fictionalized vignette illustrates how these patterns are repeated and how therapy can help:

Emma
Emma grew up in a loving, nurturing home.  She was the youngest of three children in a close-knit extended family.  Both parents were actively involved in the children's lives, although the father was often away on business.

Emma's mother was well liked by her neighbors for her kindness and generosity.  She was very proud of Emma and Emma's sisters, and she instilled confidence in them.  She encouraged their curiosity and creativity, and she taught them that they could be whatever they wanted to be.

As the youngest, Emma was closest to her mother.  By the time Emma was about to start school, her sisters were already involved in high school activities and out of the house most of the time.  As a result, Emma spent a lot of time alone with her mother.

Emma's Mother: Caregiving For a Depressed Mother as a Child and a Depressed Spouse as an Adult

For a young child, Emma was especially perceptive, and she realized that her mother was depressed--even though her mother was loving and active in Emma's life and she tried her best to hide her depression from Emma and the rest of the family.

Emma worried about her mother, and she spent most of her time at home trying to enliven her mother and make her laugh. There were days when Emma's jokes and funny stories seemed to lift her mother's mood.  But there were other days when it seemed that nothing Emma could do would lift her mother's spirits and Emma felt very sad on those days.

As Emma got older and she developed friendships and outside interests, she continued to feel that her primary responsibility was to lift her mother's spirits. Realizing that Emma felt overly responsible for her, her mother would encourage Emma to pursue her friendships and interests.  She didn't want Emma to sacrifice her happiness.

By the time Emma graduated from high school, she felt deeply ambivalent about going away to college, even though her parents and older sisters encouraged her.  She worried that her mother would sink into an even deeper depression if she wasn't around to try to enliven her.

She had a hard time adjusting to being away from home during her first year at college, and she took every opportunity to go home on weekends to spend time with her mother.  She would also often bring home friends that she thought would be entertaining for her mother.

In her junior year, she met Tom.  She liked that Tom was a serious philosophy major, who was intelligent, knowledgeable and curious.  Soon they were spending a lot of time together.

Emma's friends at college teased her about Tom because they thought he was dour.  But Emma brushed off their criticism and told them that they didn't know him, they were judging him only from his outer appearance, and they couldn't appreciate all of the qualities that she saw in him.

Soon after they graduated college, Emma and Tom got married and began working. Emma found her dream job working as a journalist.  But Tom was unable to find the type of job he hoped for after he graduated college.  Part of the problem was that he had definite ideas of what he wanted and refused to compromise.  As a result, he did temp work.

Emma and Tom: Caregiving For a Depressed Mother as a Child and a Depressed Spouse as an Adult

Emma was very aware that Tom felt depressed and discouraged about his work situation, so she refrained from gushing about her work.  Instead, she tried to be emotionally supportive of Tom, but he didn't respond well to her trying to lift his spirits.  He would become annoyed with her and mostly wanted to spend time alone.

This left Emma feeling lonely and helpless, and when she tried to talk to Tom about it, he refused to address the problems between them.  He expressed his resentment that she was so happy with her work, and he felt miserable.

Soon, Emma was spending most of her free time with her friends because Tom refused to go out.  She was deeply concerned about Tom and their marriage, but there was nothing that she could do.

As time went on, Emma was promoted into a more responsible position with a big salary increase. She was also given more interesting assignments.  But Tom continued to stagnate.  Emma encouraged him to get help in therapy, but he refused to go.

Two years later, their marriage was over.  Tom moved out to live with his parents across the country, and Emma was in despair.

Shortly after that, Emma began therapy to try to understand what happened and to pick up the pieces of her life.  Her psychotherapist helped Emma to see how she had been in a similar dynamic with Tom as she had been with her mother.

Although Emma's mother and Tom experienced their depression in different ways and had their own unique responses to Emma's attempts at caregiving, they elicited similar responses in Emma.

While she was in therapy, Emma also saw her blind spots about Tom.  Looking back with the perspective of time, she realized that there were signs before she got married that Tom was depressed and rigid in his thinking, but she didn't want to see these traits.  She also saw her role in the demise of their marriage and how she infantilized Tom.

Emma grieved in therapy for the loss of her marriage as she went through the divorce process.  She also learned in therapy that she had a propensity to be a caregiver in a relationship due to her early relationship with her mother, and she would need to be much more aware of this in the future so she would not repeat the same patterns.

Conclusion
Emotional dynamics between parents and children are developed at an early age.

As in the fictionalized vignette above, these dynamics are often unconscious for both parent and child.

When a child grows up feeling emotionally responsible for a parent, this often sets up the possibility for similar dynamics in adult relationships on an unconscious level, which often leads to problems in the relationship for both individuals.

Getting Help in Therapy
Both people in the relationship need to be willing to change these unhealthy dynamics to make healthy changes.

It can be very challenging to overcome these dynamics on your own, even if one or both people are aware of them and willing to change, which is why working with a skilled psychotherapist can be helpful.

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

I have helped many clients to overcome unhealthy emotional patterns in their 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.

Overcoming the Need to Be Everyone's Caregiver

The need to be everyone's caretaker often starts in childhood in a family where a young child feels she must be the one to protect and take care of the rest of the family (see my article: The Trauma of the Family "Hero" in a Dysfunctional Family and How to Stop Being the Rescuer in Your Family of Origin).

The Need to Be Everyone's Caretaker Often Starts at a Young Age

While being the caretaker might help a child to feel that her family life is less out of control, there are many problems with trying to be everyone's caretaker over the course of a lifetime (see my article: Overcoming Codependency: Taking Care of Yourself First,  Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and Reacting to the Present Based on the Past).

Let's take a look at a fictionalized vignette which illustrates these dynamics:

Amy
Amy was the oldest of four children who grew up in a chaotic family.

Her parents were both active alcoholics who were constantly losing their jobs due to alcohol-related reasons.  They were often out of the house, sometimes for days, and none of the children knew where they were.  When they were home, they were frequently drunk and fighting with each other.

The Need to Be Everyone's Caretaker Often Starts at a Young Age

At an early age, Amy stepped into the parental role with her siblings, cooking, cleaning and assuming overall responsibility for their care.

She also intervened on her siblings' behalf when their father got angry with them and wanted to hit them.  She would step in front of her siblings and tell the father to hit her instead.

Despite the problems at home, Amy did well in school.  Eventually, she got a scholarship to go to the college that she had always wanted to go to, but she turned it down because she was afraid to leave her siblings alone with her parents.  Instead, she went to a local college to maintain her parental role and protect her siblings.

Amy didn't move out of the house until her younger siblings were independent and on their own.

Even then, she had some doubts about moving out because she feared that her parents' alcoholism had gotten so bad that they wouldn't be able to function on their own.  But she also longed to have her own place and have a life of her own, so she moved out.

She would usually go to her parents' house on the weekends to check in on them, something that none of her other siblings did because they had so much resentment towards them.

Although she did as much as she could for them over the weekends, her parents were usually so drunk that they barely noticed that she was there.

It wasn't until her father's doctor warned him that her father stopped drinking.  Shortly after that, he left Amy's mother for another woman.  Shocked by her husband's abandonment, Amy's mother moved in with her mother and also stopped drinking.

Amy was doing well in her job and she received several promotions.

A few years later, a new CEO took over and began to make changes which worried Amy and her colleagues.

They were very concerned about some of the directives that they were given by senior management under the new CEO.  At best, some of these directives were questionable and, at worst, some were clearly unethical.

Since Amy was accustomed to being in the caretaking role, she assumed that role at work with her colleagues.  She was the one that her colleagues came to when they were upset about these changes.  She always made time to listen to them, often giving up her lunch hour or staying late at work.

The Need to Be Everyone's Caretaker Often Begins in Childhood and Continues Into Adulthood

Although Amy wasn't in a position to challenge the CEO, she spoke to her director on behalf of colleagues and herself to let him know about their concerns.

After he listened attentively, he told Amy that this situation was out of his hands and he felt there was nothing that he or anyone else could do.  He also confided in her that he was looking for another job and advised her to do the same.

Over time, Amy became anxious and developed insomnia.  She knew that, for her own well-being, she couldn't stay at this company.  But she also felt responsible for the well-being of her colleagues and she didn't want to desert them.

Eventually, she began therapy for help with this dilemma:  She felt that her choices were to either take care of herself and abandon her colleagues or remain there to be supportive and her health would continue to deteriorate.

Over time, her therapist helped her to discover the underlying reasons why it felt so compelling to Amy to take care of her colleagues.

Amy was able to make the connection between her childhood history of being the caretaker in her family and her current situation with feeling she had to remain in a bad work environment to take care of her colleagues (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Your Past Childhood Trauma).

Gradually, she began to see that in her family, she felt compelled to be the caretaker so that life at home didn't feel so out of control, and in her work situation, she also felt the need to be the caretaker in another dysfunctional situation (see my article: How Your Workplace Can Feel Like a Dysfunctional Family).

Several months later, Amy was contacted by a search firm that found her profile online and wanted to refer her to another job.  It sounded like a great opportunity to Amy, and they were sure that Amy would be the perfect fit for this job.

Although, on one level Amy was happy to get this call, on another level, it made her feel even more conflicted about what to do.

When Amy's therapist explored this with her and asked her under what circumstances she would feel comfortable with taking another job, the first thing that came to Amy's mind was that she would only feel good about leaving after her colleagues were comfortably situated in other jobs.

Hearing herself say that, Amy realized that this was exactly how she felt about her siblings--she couldn't allow herself to leave the home until each of her siblings was out of the house and independent.

All along, Amy's anxiety and insomnia was worsening, and she was increasingly concerned about her health.

Over time, her therapist helped Amy to distinguish between her younger siblings, who really couldn't take care of themselves vs. her colleagues, who were competent and resourceful adults.

Amy realized on a deep emotional level, not just on an intellectual level, that her colleagues would survive without her help.

She also looked at, for the first time in her life, the price that she paid for being the caretaker in her family--the social events that she missed, the school clubs that she didn't participate in, the dates she didn't go on, the sacrifice of not going to the college she wanted to go to, and many other missed opportunities.

She also understood that her emotional needs weren't taken care of in her family when she was a child, and now she wasn't taking care of her needs (see my article: Psychotherapy Can Help You to Understand Your Emotional Needs).

Making the distinction between the past and the present and acknowledging that she no longer wanted to be so self sacrificing enabled Amy to accept a great job offer (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma in Psychotherapy: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now").

Overcoming the Need to Be Everyone's Caretaker

Getting to the point where she could do this wasn't easy or quick (see my article: Beyond the "Band Aid" Approach in Psychotherapy).

There were a complex array of early problems to be worked through.  But Amy stuck with her work in therapy and she stopped trying to be everyone's caretaker.

She also began attending Al-Anon as another resource to help her learn to focus on herself first (see my article: Al-Anon: Beyond Reciting Slogans).

Conclusion
Becoming a caretaker at a young age often results in trying to be everyone's caretaker as an adult.

It's understandable that a young child in Amy's situation would want to do whatever she could to try to help her siblings as well as help herself to feel less out of control.

But one of the problems with this is that it comes with big sacrifices to the child who assumes this role with regard to many missed opportunities that can never be regained.

Another problem is that it often sets a pattern for how this child will function later on as an adult with all the dilemmas involved with taking care of oneself vs. taking care of others.

In addition, it increases the likelihood that, as an adult, the person who tries to be a caretaker to everyone will choose relationships with people who have many problems, including substance abuse, gambling and other serious problems, and try to "fix" their significant others.

The person who takes on the caretaker role often feels that he or she can resolve whatever problems another person has regardless of the problems.

This is a kind of inflated sense of self that the child fools him or herself into believing at a young age in order to believe that s/he can do whatever it takes to solve the family's problems.

And while this might have saved the child from feeling despair at the time, it creates a false sense of self and continues to perpetuate these caretaker dynamics (see my article: Understanding the False Self).

Getting Help in Therapy
Trying to be everyone's caretaker is a problem that many people struggling with as adults.

Many people come to therapy when they find themselves in what they perceive to be a no-win situation of taking care of themselves vs taking care of others.

Aside from the emotional anguish involved, trying to be everyone's caretaker often results in physical problems, including anxiety-related problems: insomnia, headaches, stomach problems, high blood pressure and so on.

The dilemma is often too great to resolve on their own, so they seek the help of a psychotherapist.

People who have this problem often discover that once they no longer feel compelled to be a caretaker for others, they have increased vitality and happiness in their own life.

If you recognize yourself as being someone who tries to be everyone's caretaker with all the problems  involved in these dynamics, you owe it to yourself to help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist and How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Develop a New Perspective About Yourself and Others).

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

I have helped many individuals to overcome problems with taking care of everyone else and not taking care of themselves.

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.