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Showing posts with label rejection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rejection. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Ethical Flirting: How Can You Tell If Someone is Really Into You or Just Being Friendly?

Trying to figure out if someone is interested in you or if they're just being friendly towards you can be tricky.

Ethical Flirting: Are They Into You or Just Being Friendly?


In the past few weeks, I've written several articles about flirting which can be helpful in understanding the topic of ethical flirting:







In Episode 132 of the Sex and Psychology podcast, "Ethical Flirting and Seduction", Dr. Justin Lehmiller discusses this topic with Dr. Alison Ash, a trauma-informed intimacy coach (the link is at the end of this article).

What is Ethical Flirting?
According to Dr. Ash, flirting is intentionally vague--it's not linear.

Flirting isn't about building and escalating in one direction.  

Instead, flirting a wave-like experience of escalating and de-escalating even when you're both interested in each other and aligned in what you want.

Ethical Flirting: Are They Into You or Just Being Friendly?

The vagueness and the escalating/de-escalating allows you to test the waters to see how the other person responds to you.

Ethical flirting involves balancing emotional safety and turn-on as you test the boundaries (in an appropriate way) based on the person you're with and the context you're in.

Part of the challenge of ethical flirting is finding the comfortable intersection between emotional safety and turn-on.

If there's too much safety and not enough turn-on, you might find yourself in the "Friend Zone" when you don't want to be there.

Dating vs Friend Zone

If there's too much turn-on and not enough safety, the person you're interested in might get uncomfortable and put up defensive walls.

According to Dr. Ash, the difference between ethical flirting vs manipulation is whether or not you're approaching flirting in a goal-oriented way (e.g., getting the other person into bed).

Dr. Ash indicated that when flirting has a particular goal, it can lead to subtle or overt manipulation because, by focusing on the goal, you might overlook many signals from the other person who might not be interested.

Why is Attunement Important When You're Flirting?
When you're attuned to the other person, you're tracking whether or not you're getting cues or signals from them that they're interested (or not).

These cues can include (depending upon the cultural backgrounds of each person):
  • Eye contact
  • Smile 
  • Body language
  • Facial expression
  • Your own intuition of what's happening between you and the other person
Attunement is important when you're flirting because it allows you to 
  • Meet the other person where they're at in the moment 
  • Let the situation unfold without being attached to a particular goal
  • Help the other person to feel safe with you so they can open up if they're interested
  • Help the other person to let you know they're not interested
  • Recalibrate your interactions if you're getting signals they're not interested or they're interested but they're uncomfortable because you're going too fast for them
How Can You Tell If Someone is Interested in You or Just Being Friendly?
Flirting often takes place in an ambiguous context, according to Dr. Ash, and it can be unclear as to whether someone is attracted to you or just being friendly.

I remember a situation when I was in my early 20s and working for a large corporate organization:

On most mornings, I would run into a friendly guy who worked in another department on my floor who was really chatty.  Sometimes we would have a friendly chat for a few minutes about the weather or our weekend--nothing intimate. I thought nothing of it at the time.

Then, one day a large bouquet of red roses was delivered to my desk without a card.  I just assumed it was from my boyfriend at the time.  But when I called my boyfriend to thank him, I just heard momentary silence on the other end of the phone. Then, to my amazement, he said, "It wasn't me. Who's sending you flowers?"

This left me confused and curious. But by the next day, I ran into the friendly guy and he asked me if I got the roses he sent, and I felt the blood rush to my face.

When I told him that I had a boyfriend and I hoped he didn't misunderstand my friendliness towards him, he looked embarrassed.  He had obviously misconstrued my friendliness to mean that I was interested in him.  After that, he stopped speaking to me, which made it very awkward whenever we ran into each other in the hall.

In this particular case, I think there were also cultural issues that added to the confusion because (I found out later) the women from his culture wouldn't stop to chat with a man in a friendly way unless there was a romantic interest.

I'm bringing up this story to show how easy and common it is for there to be misunderstandings in these kinds of situations.

Women often discuss these kinds of misunderstandings in therapy.  On the one hand, they don't want to be unfriendly but, on the other hand, they don't want to have their friendliness misconstrued as attraction.

So, developing the necessary attunement skills is essential when you're interested in someone and you want to know if they're interested in you.  At the same time, be aware that there can be misunderstandings (I'll address how to deal with that later in this article).

How to Flirt in an Ethical Way
Flirting an be fun and playful or it can be sleazy.  

According to Dr. Ash, if you want to want it to be fun and not sleazy:
  • Escalate Flirting Slowly: This gives you an opportunity to assess cues from the other person. It also allows the other person to refine the cues they're giving you.
  • Look For a Cluster of Cues: Instead of looking for only one cue, look for a cluster of cues, including if the other person:
    • Makes eye contact with you where they're gazing at you or looks away
    • Leans in to minimize the body space between you and them or moves away
    • Reaches out to touch you lightly in an appropriate way (e.g., upper arm or shoulder)
    • Reciprocates your touch in an appropriate way
    • Responds by smiling at you or stiffens towards you
    • Engages you in fun and "juicy" topics as you get to know each other or if their interaction with you remains more mundane
How to Deal With Misattunements
As I mentioned earlier in my personal example, it can be easy to misunderstand even if you think you're picking up on signals that the other person is interested.

Ethical Flirting: Dealing With Misattunements

The tricky part is to figure out whether what you're seeing is disinterest or if the other person is interested but uncomfortable because you escalated the flirting too quickly.  

Be aware that there are different levels of flirting.  

For instance, if you were talking and lightly touching the other person's upper arm and they still seemed engaged in flirting with you, but then you touched their hand and they responded by moving away, you need to back off and reassess the situation.

Assuming that you're only misaligned in the moment because you escalated too quickly and the person is actually still interested in you but uncomfortable with what you just did, Dr. Ash recommends that you go back a step to where you last felt you were both aligned.

For example, if you felt aligned at the point when you were both smiling and engaged in a particular topic of conversation, take a step back, recalibrate, and return to the former level of flirting.  

If your recalibration doesn't work, you might have to address the so-called "elephant in the room" in a tactful way. This can be awkward, but it's less awkward than if you don't address it at all. 

You can address this misattunement by apologizing and naming what just transpired. This can help the other person to see that you're trying to be attuned to them and you want to meet them where they're are in that moment.  Then, if they're interested, they can also try to align with you.

Ethical Flirting Online
According to Dr. Ash, online flirting can be even trickier than in-person flirting because you don't have the physical cues to help you to be attuned. 

She recommends video chats instead of texting because texting can be confusing.  

Either way, her recommendation is that you go slowly.  For instance, don't start by asking very intimate questions, like "What are your sexual fantasies?" or "What's your favorite sex position?"

You need to build the intimacy slowly so that when you get the signal that the other person might be ready for more intimate topics. Then, you can bring up the right topics at the right time instead of being offensive.

A slow escalation allows you to proceed to increasing vulnerability as long as you're aligned with the person you like.

In general, whether you're flirting in-person or online, remember that building intimacy includes being curious about them and sharing information about yourself in an appropriate way.  

Too many people have a list of questions they ask the other person as if they're an interviewer and forget to be self revealing.

How to Deal with Your Fear of Rejection
Many people avoid making the effort to flirt because they fear rejection.

Ethical Flirting and Fear of Rejection

Fear of a rejection is a common problem due to:
  • Uncertainty
  • Overanalyzing yourself
  • Being overly critical of yourself in terms of what you say and do
  • Second guessing yourself
  • Previous experiences of rejection
  • Unresolved trauma
No one wants to be rejected, but if you're both too shy or afraid of rejection, you could be missing out on opportunities to get to know each other.

Dr. Ash's recommendations on how to overcome your fear, especially if you lack experience with ethical flirting include:
  • Become more embodied by using embodiment practices, like:
  • Access your sense of openness and curiosity (it's hard to feel anxious when you're in a curious state)
  • Focus more on the other person than yourself
  • Learn to be adaptable and flexible with regard to the person you're with and the context you're in instead of relying on the same pickup line for everyone
  • Be playful and fun if the circumstances allow for it
  • Be aware of the types of environments where you feel the most comfortable so you can show your best side as opposed to feeling like an impostor
When to Seek Help in Therapy
When you're engaging in ethical flirting, you can either feel delight in the longing and anticipation or you can feel emotional pain.

If you feel emotionally unfulfilled because you don't have close relationships with friends and family or because you have unresolved trauma, flirting can be challenging for you because you feel insecure and you come across as too hungry for emotional connection.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you don't have other close relationships, learn to cultivate platonic relationships that will nourish you emotionally. Aside from nourishing you emotionally, these platonic relationships can help you to develop interpersonal skills that are similar to the skills you need to make romantic connections.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome the emotional blocks that get in your way.

So, rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

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

I am a sex-positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

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

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





























Wednesday, June 22, 2022

It's Not Always About You: How to Stop Personalizing Rejection While Dating

In a prior article, How to Stop Jumping to Conclusions and Personalizing Other People's Behavior, I discussed how earlier trauma can get triggered if you personalize other people's behavior. Most of the time, especially at the point when you're triggered, you might not recognize that your emotions have more to do with the past than the current situation because triggers can feel so powerful and immediate (see my article: Coping With Emotional Triggers).

Dating: Their Rejection Might Not Be About You
With regard to getting rejected by someone you're dating, it's very easy to get triggered, especially if you have unresolved abandonment or loss issues (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection).


How to Stop Personalizing Rejection While Dating

To complicate matters, the person you were dating might not know how to communicate what they're going through, so you might feel left out in the cold as to why they don't want to see you anymore (see my article: 7 Reasons Why You Might Be Having a Hard Time Getting Over a Breakup).

But try to keep in mind that, unless that person tells you that you said or did something that offended them, they might not want to see you for reasons that have nothing to do with you, including:
  • They haven't given themselves enough time to grieve their former relationship.
  • They might like you, but they feel the two of you might not have enough in common.
  • Having nothing to do with you, they might feel too insecure and anxious to date.
  • They might feel overwhelmed by other things going on in their life and they don't have the time or emotional capacity to start a new relationship.
  • They might have their own unresolved trauma that is affecting their ability to be open to dating you.
And so on.

Tips on How to Deal With Rejection While Dating
  • Don't Take It Personally: Sure, it hurts when someone you like doesn't want to see you.  As previously mentioned, it can bring up a lot of your own insecurities, which might not have anything to do with the current situation.
  • Recognize That You Might Be Making Up Negative Stories in Your Head: When you have had a little time to step back from your hurt feelings, recognize that you might be creating a narrative in your head that has nothing to do with the situation. For instance, if your immediate reaction is to have negative thoughts like, "They don't want to see me because I'm not attractive enough" or "They don't think I'm good enough," recognize that these are your thoughts that are probably getting projected onto the other person (see my article: Feelings Aren't Facts).
  • Learn to Question the Validity of the Negative Stories You're Telling Yourself: When you're in a calmer state, ask yourself how likely is it that you were rejected because of the reasons you're telling yourself. If you have a problem being objective, talk to a trusted friend to get an impartial perspective.
  • Be Respectful of the Other Person: Although it's tempting to lash out, it's better to summon your best self, tell the other person you accept their decision, and let them go.  If they don't offer an explanation, accept that you're not going to get closure with them.  Don't try to convince them to see you or badger them for an explanation if you don't get one.  Recognize that most people don't want to be in the position of rejecting anyone so be compassionate (see my article: Coping With a Breakup When Closure With Your Ex Isn't Possible).
  • Get Professional Help From a Licensed Mental Health Professional: If the rejection brings up earlier unresolved trauma, seek help from a licensed trauma specialist to work through the trauma so these memories no longer get activated (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).
Fictionalized Clinical Vignette
The following vignette is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed, and it will illustrate how earlier trauma can get triggered by rejection and how therapy can help:

Tom
After dating Sally for two months, Tom got a call from her to cancel their upcoming date.  Since they had been out several times and he thought things were going well between them, Tom was surprised and disappointed.

Sally sounded nervous on the phone as she told him that she didn't see things progressing between them and she didn't think they should continue to see each other.  

She was somewhat vague about her decision. She only said she wasn't sure, but things just "didn't feel right" between them and it might be because she started dating again too soon after her breakup with her prior boyfriend of five years.  

Tom felt hurt and he asked Sally if there was anything he said or did that might have affected things between them.  In response, Sally said her decision didn't have anything to do with him--she just wasn't feeling like their relationship would develop into anything more serious.  She told him she was sorry if she was hurting his feelings, and then she said she needed to go.

After Tom got off the phone with Sally, in addition to feeling hurt and disappointed, he felt ashamed.  He was in his early 30s and he had never been in a serious relationship before.  He was hoping that things would get serious between him and Sally.  Before he got her call, he thought he saw the possibility of a committed relationship, but now his hopes were dashed.

He could feel that familiar sinking feeling coming over him and his thoughts turned negative pretty quickly, "Women just don't like me," "They don't find me attractive," and "They don't think I'm good enough for them."

Soon he was immersed in these negative thoughts, and by the time he saw his therapist the following day, he was feeling hopeless.  

"I just don't think I'll ever find someone who will want me." he told his therapist.

In response, his therapist reminded him that these were the distorted negative thoughts he often had when he felt rejected.  She also reminded him that these were old feelings stemming from his childhood relationship with parents who were too preoccupied to show him love or affection when he was growing up (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You Become Aware of Distorted Thinking).

Tom recognized that what his therapist said was true.  During that session, he was able to stand back to look at the situation from Sally's perspective and he realized that her rejection didn't have anything to do with him.

Until then, Tom had not wanted to do trauma therapy to work through his childhood trauma which often got triggered when he felt rejected.  But he told him therapist that he was finally ready to work through his unresolved trauma so he would no longer get triggered by them (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You Overcome Your Fear of Abandonment).

Conclusion
Now that most people are dating through dating apps, there's even more of a chance of getting rejected due to the sheer number of people on the apps and all the dating possibilities available to people.

Although your disappointment and hurt are real, the negative stories you're telling yourself might have nothing to do with why the other person rejected you. 

Take time to step back to get a better perspective. 

If talking to a friend doesn't help you because old wounds are getting triggered, seek professional help from a trauma therapist (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have unresolved trauma that involves loss and feelings of abandonment, your unresolved trauma can make rejection much worse.

When you seek help in trauma therapy, you're taking steps to work through your traumatic history so you won't get triggered by it again.

Once you're free from your traumatic history, you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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













Monday, November 5, 2018

How to Stop Jumping to Conclusions and Personalizing Other People's Behavior

One of the most challenging lessons to learn in life is to not jump to conclusions and personalize other people's behavior, which is the topic of this article (see my article: How Psychotherapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking).

Stop Personalizing Other People's Behavior

Why Do We Jump to Conclusions and Personalize Other People's Behavior?
When people feel rejected, criticized or neglected in some way, they often feel insecure or anxious and this can trigger other earlier traumatic experiences that made them feel the same way.

Most people won't recognize that their earlier experiences are getting triggered and assume that what they're feeling has to do exclusively with the current situation.

Other people have difficulty distinguishing their feelings from objective facts (see my article: Discovering That Your Feelings Aren't Facts).

How to Keep Yourself From Personalizing Other People's Behavior
It's so easy to jump to conclusions about what's going on with someone else and what it means about you.

But before you personalize someone else's behavior that feels hurtful to you, it's important to stop your thoughts from getting ahead of you so that you don't distort the situation and project your insecurities onto the situation.

It's also important to consider that whatever this person did (or didn't do) might have nothing to do with you.

Fictional Clinical Vignette:  Learning Not to Take Other People's Behavior Personally
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how personalizing someone else's behavior represents distorted thinking and how to handle this type of situation better:

Ann
After being broken up for over a year, Ann decided to contact her former boyfriend, Alex, after she heard from mutual friends that he was having some medical problems.

On the one hand, just the thought of contacting Alex was enough to make Ann feel anxious and insecure with regard to how Alex would respond to her.  But on the other hand, she knew Alex was kind to her and, when she could be objective about it, she thought he probably would respond well, especially since they were on relatively good terms when she broke up with him.

After she left a message on his voicemail, she waited to hear back from him.  But after several days went by, she began to think that Alex might be angry with her after all, and he might not want to talk to her.

When she checked with a mutual friend, Ann found out that Alex had recuperated, he was doing relatively well, and he was back to work again.  This only fueled even more of Ann's insecurity and anxiety.

As each day passed, Ann became even more convinced that she had made a mistake by leaving a message for Alex.  She felt ashamed about reaching out to him. Her thoughts veered to earlier situations when she felt rejected and ashamed, including times when her father pushed her away as a child when she tried to hug him when he came home from work.

After two weeks had passed, Ann confided in her close friend, Rina, that she was feeling ashamed and angry that Alex hadn't returned her call.  Rina, who knew Alex, told Ann that there was probably a good reason why Alex wasn't calling.  She said she doubted that Alex was angry with her, and she advised Ann not to personalize Alex's lack of response.

By the third week, Alex called Ann and apologized profusely for not getting back to her sooner.  He told her that he had lost his phone with all his personal contacts, and he had only recently found it.  He said he really appreciated hearing from her and he was feeling much better.

Conclusion
Jumping to conclusions and personalizing other people's behavior is a common problem for many people, especially people who have an early traumatic history of being neglected or abused.  When people are triggered, it can be difficult to distinguish the current issue from the past.

It helps to develop the ability to stop your thoughts, which might be distorted, and question the conclusions that you've jumped to about the other person and the situation.

Being patient and getting more information is also helpful so that you don't automatically feel anxious or insecure when, in fact, the other person's behavior might have nothing to do with you.

This applies to personal situations as well as work-related situations (e.g., where a supervisor might seem angry with you but, in fact, is angry because of personal problems).

Getting Help in Therapy
If you find that you have a tendency to personalize other people's behavior due to your own early history, you could benefit from seeing a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to make distinctions between the past and the present and also assist you to work through your early traumatic history.

Getting help in therapy for this issue can help you to have a more fulfilling and meaningful life without the distorted thoughts that can cause so much angst.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and Emotionally Focused 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.
















Wednesday, December 19, 2012

When Someone You Love Rejects Your Help

One of the hardest things to endure is to experience someone you love, who is suffering, turn down your help.  You know that you all you want to do is help, but your loved one, for whatever reason, rejects your offer.  This can create a lot of conflicting feelings in you, including sadness, confusion, helplessness, frustration and anger.  It's very hard to watch your loved one in pain and not be able to do anything about it.  

Assuming that your loved one is an adult who is not seriously mentally or physically ill, the best thing you can do under ordinary circumstances is to back off and realize that your loved one isn't necessarily rejecting you personally.

For whatever reason, he doesn't want your help, and nagging and pleading with him isn't going to help. Assuming that he is an adult, the problem isn't an emergency, and he's not in danger of harming himself or anyone else, you can assure your loved that if and when he wants your help, you're ready to help him. Then, you really need to step back and take care of yourself in whatever positive ways you can to deal with this difficult situation.

When Someone You Love Rejects Your Help, You Might Have to Take a Step Back

The following scenario, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates how to deal with a situation when someone you love rejects your help:

Karen:
When Karen came to see me, she was very worried about her 28 year old son, Michael, who had just lost his job through no fault of his own.  His company laid off half the workforce due to a financial downturn, and Michael was among the employees let go.

Karen was aware that Michael had large student loan debts and he had little in the way of savings.  When he told her about the lay off, she offered to give him money so he could get by until he found another job.  She also urged him to move back home so he wouldn't have to pay rent.  But Michael rejected her help, telling her that he could take care of himself.

Over the next few months, Karen watched as Michael struggled to find another job.  With each new rejection, Michael seemed more and more disappointed.  When she renewed her offer to help him, Michael lost his temper with her and lashed out, accusing her of not having any faith in him.  Karen was hurt and confused by Michael's response.

Karen tried to explain that she only wanted to help him, but he told her to back off.  She had never seen Michael like this before, and she was worried.  When she began having problems with insomnia, her husband, who was respecting Michael's wishes, recommended that she seek help, and this is when she called me.

We worked on helping Karen to contain her difficult emotions, to focus on herself, and to engage in better self care with regard to her eating and sleep habits.  She also began spending more time engaging in activities that she enjoyed.  She had to learn to accept that Michael was an adult who was responsible for himself, and if he didn't want her help, she had to accept it.  She also had to learn not to personalize his rejection of her help, and recognize that loved ones often turn down help.  She also learned to stop nagging him with her offers, which was having a negative impact on their relationship.  Michael interpreted these offers to mean that she had no confidence in him, even though this isn't what she meant.

Several more months went by, with Michael working whatever part time jobs he could find, until he finally found a job that was similar in responsibilities and salary to his prior job.  When Michael told Karen that he found a great new job, Karen heard the happiness and pride in his voice.   At that point, she understood why it was so important for him to reject her help so he could feel that he could take care of himself on his own.

If Your Loved One is a Harm to Himself or to Others, You'll Need to Take Action
Fortunately, this particular scenario has a happy ending, but not all situations end this happily.  As I mentioned before, if you feel that a loved one is in serious danger of hurting himself or someone else (either suicidal or homicidal or there is an imminent threat of danger), you need to take action by contacting local mental health professionals or, under the most serious and immediate circumstances, calling 911.

Under Ordinary Circumstances, If Your Loved One Rejects Your Help, Be Reassuring But Not Interfering
Under the more usual circumstances that we normally experience with loved ones, if they don't want our help, we often have to step back and back off.

I know this can be very hard to do, but continuing to insist on helping will only make your loved one dig in his or her heels even more.  Assure your loved one of your love and that, if he changes his mind, you're ready to help.  Until then, be as tactful and gracious as you can, and recognize that we can't spare our loved ones the hurt and pain that are a normal part of life.

Hopefully, your loved one will resolve the problem and resume his or her usual life, and your relationship will remain strong.

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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

Also, see my article:  Learning to Let Go and Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship


photo credit: drewleavy via photopin cc




Saturday, January 7, 2012

Relationships: Overcoming Fear of Rejection

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see many people who would very much like to be in romantic relationships, but their fear of rejection keeps them from getting close to potential partners. It's an emotionally painful place to be--wanting to be in a loving relationship, but too overcome with fear (see my article: An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Fearing Love).  This ambivalence keeps many people "stuck" and unhappy.

Overcoming Fear of Rejection

It's not unusual for people who fear rejection from potential romantic partners to have a family background where they were emotionally neglected or abused.

Often they don't realize that their fear is based on memories of what happened to them as children in an either neglectful or abusive household.

The fear is so strong and feels so immediate that they believe that their fear is based on the here-and-now rather than the past.

Other people repeat their childhood experiences in their adult life by unconsciously choosing romantic partners who were hurtful and rejecting of them.  They don't realize that they're repeating this old pattern.

After getting hurt several times in different relationships, they become too fearful to get involved again.

Overcoming Fear of Rejection

Fear of Rejection and Lack of Self Confidence
Their fear often keeps them from socializing, so added to their fear of rejection is a lack of self confidence about interacting with others because they haven't developed the necessary social skills.

As a result, when they do make an effort to meet others, they come across as socially awkward and uncomfortable.

This, in turn, causes others, who pick up on their discomfort, to feel uncomfortable with them and also, possibly, causes people to shy away from them, which brings about the self fulfilling prophecy that they will be rejected.

Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection
Psychotherapy can be helpful to break this cycle, which begins with fear of rejection.

Overcoming Fear of Rejection

If you find yourself trapped by your own fear of rejection, you owe it to yourself to work with a psychotherapist who has expertise in this area.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

I've helped many clients to overcome their fear of rejection.

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

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