Understanding Why An Emotional Block Might Be Preventing You From Crying

If you have ever felt like your tears of sadness are "stuck", you know the frustration of feeling an emotional block (also known as emotional numbing). This often happens when your nervous system feels overwhelmed and enters into a self-protective "freeze" response.

Trauma Responses: The Freeze Response

You might feel the intense pressure of a lump in your throat, but your mind perceives this type crying as a potential threat to your emotional survival and safety. This "freeze" response is known as a trauma response. 

What Are the Reasons Why Your Tears Might Feel "Stuck"?

• Your Nervous System "Freeze" Response: When you experience prolonged stress or intense trauma, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) can become overloaded. Instead of triggering a fight-or-flight response, your body reacts with a survival mechanism called dissociation (also known as a dorsal vagal shutdown).  Your brain reduces the intensity of your emotions to protect you from being overwhelmed by them. This response acts like a "circuit breaker" that cuts off power to your tear ducts (see my article: What is Trauma-Related Dissociation?)

Trauma Responses: The Freeze Response 

• Emotional Exhaustion and Burnout: Crying is an active biological process that requires emotional energy. If you have been trying to "hold it together" for months or even years, your emotional reserves can become depleted. The sadness is there, but your body might not have the stamina to release the tears.

Emotional Exhaustion and Burnout

• Unconscious Conditioning and Safety Walls: If you grew up in a household where there were rules that you shouldn't cry or you were punished for showing emotional vulnerability, these experiences can teach your brain to suppress tears. If you might ahve been given the message that you had to be "independent" when you were a child so you had to keep your emotions suppressed. In addition, forcing yourself to "power through" can leave you with no room to pause, soften, feel your feelings and cry.  

Being Scolded For Crying as a Child?

• Mental Health Conditions: Even though depression is usually associated with sadness, it frequently shows up as emotional blunting or anhedonia. This can make you experience your feelings as "flat" which makes tears inaccessible.

How to Safely Release Blocked Emotions in Experiential Therapy

You can't force an emotional release by trying to force yourself to cry because when you put that kind of pressure on yourself, your nervous system tightens up even more. In order for you release pent up emotions, you need to have a sense of safety so your body can gently release the emotions.

When you are dealing with "stuck" emotions, traditional talk therapy can be too much of an intellectual process that keeps you in your head. You might gain intellectual insight into your problems, but you don't get an emotional release.

The most effective therapies for processing trauma and releasing "stuck" emotions are mind-body oriented therapies, also known as Experiential Therapies (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective For Healing Trauma Than Traditional Talk Therapy?).

The following are some of the main types of Experiential Therapy:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE): SE was developed by Dr. Peter Levine. SE treats emotional numbness as trapped survival energy from past stress or trauma. An SE therapist helps you to slow down so you can track subtle sensations (warmth, tingling, tightness) rather than asking you to only talk about what you're experiencing. By slowly introducing small amounts of "stuck" energy at a time (a process called "titration" in SE), your nervous system gently "thaws out" of its freeze response without becoming overwhelmed (see my article:  What Are the Benefits of SE to Heal Trauma?).

Somatic Experiencing Therapy

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): While EMDR is usually associated with the bilateral stimulation process it uses, it is deeply rooted in how the body stores distressing memories. During the processing phase of EMDR, you focus on a particular memory or, if you are stuck in a freeze response, you focus on the physical feeling of numbness and where you feel it in the body. Then you follow either a physical or tactile bilateral stimulus. EMDR can help you to process "stuck" emotional information. Over time, this can lead to a somatic discharge like crying or a deep sense of physical relief when your body and mind feel safe enough to do it (see my article: How Does EMDR Therapy Work: EMDR and the Brain).

EMDR Therapy

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work Therapy: In IFS an inability to cry due to a trauma-related freeze response is viewed as a protective strategy rather than a "broken" emotional system.  From an IFS perspective, this freeze response shields you from being overwhelmed by grief, fear or overwhelming sadness. In traditional psychotherapy the freeze response is often viewed as a symptom to eliminate, but in IFS the freeze response is appreciated as a protective aspect of the client. An IFS therapist uses the process called "unblending" to help the client to step away from the freeze response so that they can access Core Self, which is a part that is compassionate and curious to get to the underlying emotional wound that the emotional numbing protects (see my article: IFS Therapy is a Gentle Evidence-Based Trauma Therapy).

IFS Parts Work Therapy

• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP): An AEDP therapist treats the freeze response with a safe relational environment that gently helps to "thaw out" the nervous system. One of AEDP's primary goals is to "undo aloneness" where the therapist uses attachment-oriented affirmation ("I am here with you" or "We are doing this together") to build a secure base. When the brain registers true relational safety, the nervous system naturally begins to release it's survival-driven emotional numbing. The AEDP therapist also uses moment-to-moment tracking of the client's somatic cues. She will bring awareness to these somatic cues ("I notice that your jaw seems tight" or "I notice that your breath seems shallow. Can we slow down so we can see what's happening there?" Similar to IFS, AEDP recognizes that emotional numbing was once an adaptive defense when it wasn't possible to express emotions. So, she helps the client to process the emotional numbing. When the client begins to "thaw" from the emotional numbing, the therapist shares the emotional burden, validating the client's feelings and keeping the client anchored within their "window of tolerance" so that this energy can be discharged in a way that is manageable for the client (see my article: What is AEDP and How Does It Heal Trauma?).

What Are the Benefits of Integrating Experiential Therapies Like EMDR, IFS, AEDP and SE?

When an Experiential Therapist integrates EMDR, IFS, AEDP and SE (or any combination of these therapies), it means she is practicing an integrative trauma-informed "bottom up" approach to healing trauma.

Rather than using an intellectual top-down approach of talking about trauma conceptually, as would be done in traditional psychotherapy, the Experiential Therapist targets how trauma is held in the mind and in the nervous system. 

By using a combination of Experiential Therapy, the trauma therapist builds a complete plan that addresses the cognitive, emotional, relational and physical layers of your trauma. 

Get Help in Experiential Therapy

Whereas traditional psychotherapy is a "top down" approach, Experiential Therapies are a  "bottom up" approach to healing trauma.

Get Help in Experiential Therapy

The bottom-up approach of Experiential Therapy is often more effective than a top-down approach because because trauma, intense anxiety and emotional stress are stored in the lower brain regions and the autonomic nervous system which rational thoughts and traditional talk therapy cannot access.

If you are struggling with unresolved trauma, seek help in Experiential Therapy so you can heal your trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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 Articles:

EMDR Therapy - When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough 

Somatic Experiencing - A Mind-Body Oriented Therapy to Heal Trauma 

AEDP: How Does AEDP Process Emotions? 

IFS: How Are Emotions Processed in IFS Parts Work Therapy? 

How Does Somatic Experiencing Heal Trauma?

As a psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma, I have been using Somatic Experiencing (SE) regularly for 15 years and I have found it to be a highly effective therapy to heal trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Somatic Experiencing Can Heal Trauma

How Does Somatic Experiencing Heal Trauma?

Somatic Experiencing, which is an experiential therapy, helps to shift the body's autonomic physical responses by allowing clients to process and discharge "stuck" energy associated with trauma's fight, flight and freeze responses (see my article: Somatic Experiencing: A Mind-Body Oriented Therapy For Overcoming Trauma).

Examples of this include changes in heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, breathing, which are all part of the body's autonomic response system.

"Stuck" or "trapped" energy means the body's instinctive survival response (flight, flight, freeze) to a dangerous event doesn't complete, which leaves excess energy and heightened nervous system arousal stuck in the body. 

This unresolved survival energy can take the form of ongoing health and mental health problems including (but not limited to):

• chronic pain

• anxiety

• emotional numbing 

• muscle tension

• fatigue

• hypervigilance 

• problems with self regulation

Changes in SE are often subtle responses like feeling warmth, tingling or vibrations which indicate the release of trapped trauma-related energy.

A Somatic Experiencing therapist helps to guide clients to notice and track these felt sensations (see my article: What is the Felt Sense?).

Somatic Experiencing therapists also use pendulation to help clients shift their awareness from challenging emotions to a sense of calm so they can gradually process and integrate traumatic experiences (see my article: Coping With Emotional Distress By Using Pendulation in SE).

Understanding interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations is also part of the skill building clients learns in SE.

Interoceptive sensations are the sensations within your body, like the sensations mentioned above: heart beating, muscles tensing or feeling hungry or thirsty. As part of a traumatic experience, these sensations can become hyperactivated which leads to constant anxiety or discomfort.

Proprioceptive sensations is your body's sense of where its different parts are in space and how they are moving. Trauma can disrupt proprioceptive sensations which can make you feel disconnected from certain parts of your body.

SE can change these trauma-related disruptions to restore the natural rhythms of your nervous system that became dysregulated by the trauma.  

Along the way, you learn embodied awareness so you feel more connected to your body and bodily sensations instead of feeling overwhelmed by them. This can lead to the transformation of intense and distressing sensations to a greater sense of well-being and safety.

What Are the Benefits of Somatic Experiencing?

As an experiential therapyp, Somatic Experiencing integrates body awareness into the therapeutic process which makes it unique compared to other non-experiential therapies like regular talk therapy (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma?).

Somatic Experiencing Can Heal Trauma

As mentioned above, Somatic Experiencing can help to release trauma which can bring the body back into a regulated state.

Somatic Experiencing can be used as a primary therapy or it can be integrated with other forms of experiential therapy including:

• EMDR

• AEDP

• Hypnotherapy

• Parts Work Therapy, like IFS and Ego States Therapy 

    See my article: Integrating EMDR and Somatic Experiencing

Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Trauma

As a trauma therapist, Somatic Experiencing is one modality I use either alone or in combination with other types of experiential therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

I work in a collaborative way with clients to help them to decide which modality or combination of modalities would be best for their particular needs.

Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Trauma

If you have been struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from seeking help from a Somatic Experiencing therapist.

Freeing yourself from your traumatic history can help you to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

The Mind-Body Connection: What is Somatic Awareness?

Somatic awareness is a focused attention and interpretation of the sensations, emotions and physiological states of the body.

Somatic Awareness and the Mind-Body Connection

Somatic awareness is essential to understanding the mind-body connection, especially in Experiential Therapies like: 

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Experiencing

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Ego States Therapy

as well as other mind-body oriented therapy modalities.

What Are the Benefits of Somatic Awareness?

Being able to identify what is going in terms of the connection between what's happening between the mind and the body can help you to understand what you're experiencing in a more integrated way.

How is Somatic Awareness Used in Trauma Therapy?

Somatic awareness can also help you to recognize how trauma gets stuck in your nervous system when you're doing trauma therapy.

For instance, a trauma therapist will often ask the client to slow down to become aware of their emotions and where they feel these emotions in the body.  

This provides a deeper understanding of the client's experience for the client and the therapist.

What Are Techniques Used in Trauma Therapy to Help Clients Develop Somatic Awareness?

Here are some of the techniques that trauma therapists use during trauma therapy:

• Grounding: This technique helps clients to stay in the present moment, which is helpful when doing trauma therapy. There are many different types of grounding techniques:

• Feeling your feet on the floor

• Bringing awareness to other parts of your body

• Running water over your hand

• Tensing and relaxing your hands

• Visualizations: Visualizations help clients to calm themselves by picturing soothing images.  For instance, clients can focus on a safe or relaxing place to help them to regulate their emotions. The place can be either real or imagined. So, a client can picture a place where they have been in the past, like a beach.  They can also imagine a place they create in their mind.  As they're experiencing the calming effects of the visualization, they notice where they feel this sense of calmness in their body as well as the emotions it brings up for them (see my article: Using Your Imagination as a Powerful Tool For Change).

• Body Scans: The Body Scan Meditation is a technique where clients slowly sense into their body starting from the crown of their head down to the tips of their toes to sense what sensations they're experiencing. This meditation helps clients to regulate their internal state.

• Breath Work: There are many different types of breathing exercises, like Square Breathing, which help increase clients' awareness of their emotions, physiological state and sensations in their body.

Conclusion

Somatic awareness is essential to understanding the mind-body connection.  

It is also an important part of Experiential Therapy for overcome trauma (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma?).

Before processing trauma, trauma therapists provide clients with psychoeducation on how to do these various techniques as well as why they're important in trauma therapy.

Aside from processing trauma, somatic awareness is also effective in helping clients with anxiety, depression and other psychological challenges.

Aside from how somatic awareness can be learned in Experiential Therapy, it can also be learned in other mind-body modalities like yoga and mindfulness meditation.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been struggling on your own to overcome unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist.

Overcome unresolved trauma can help you to live a more meaning life.

About Me

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

I have worked with many individual adults and couples to help them overcome unresolved trauma (see my article:  What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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.

Sexual Wellness: Don't Yuck Anybody's Yum

According to Dr. Emily Nagoski, sex educator and author of Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, disgust and shame are learned at an early age (see my article: Shame is at the Root of Most Emotional Problems).

To illustrate her point, Dr. Nagoski writes that an infant is unlikely to touch a toy that her parents have responded to with disgust because the infant already understands on a visceral level what disgust is--even if she doesn't have the words to express it.   

Needless to say, if babies learn about disgust at such a young age, older children and teens respond to a parent's disgust with shame and guilt, which can last a lifetime.

What Does "Don't Yuck Anybody's Yum" Mean?

"Don't yuck anybody's yum" is an urban expression and can be applied to any preference whether it's food, sex or anything else.

Don't Yuck Anybody's Yum

For instance, with regard to food, someone from a particular culture might show open disgust for the food preferences of a person from another culture.  This is disrespectful and shaming.

With regard to sex, the phrase "Don't yuck anybody's yum" is a sex positive concept that means, as long as sex is between consenting adults, you shouldn't shame or judge someone else's sexual activities (see my articles: What is Power Play? and How to Talk to Your Partner About Your Sexual Desires - Part 1 and Part 2).

If you don't like it, don't do it.  But keep your negative views to yourself because a judgmental attitude is psychologically harmful to others (see my article: Potential Pitfalls When You Talk to Your Partner About Your Sexual Desires).

An Early Childhood Experience of Yucking Someone's Yum

It's a common experience for a child to get caught masturbating by a parent.  Although it's normal for children to discover pleasure through masturbation, according to Dr. Nagoski, if a parent expresses disgust when she finds her child masturbating, the shame often has a lasting psychological impact when this child becomes an adult (see my article: Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From an Adult Perspective).

If this same child experiences many instances of her parent's disgust for masturbation, those experiences can get encoded in her brain so that she associates sexual pleasure as disgusting, shameful and guilt ridden.  

This adult might have no explicit childhood memory of her parent's disgust, but she will have an implicit (unconscious) memory that will interfere with her sexual pleasure as an adult, and she probably won't even know why.  

She can grow up feeling conflicted about sexual pleasure.  On the one hand, it feels physically pleasurable.  But, on the other hand, the psychological association of shame and disgust connected to sexual pleasure will also be present at the same time.

Let's say this same woman doesn't even have conscious emotions of shame or guilt.  Her reaction might be somatic (in the body) instead (emotions are held in the body) so that when she is being sexual by herself or with a partner, her somatic reaction is to get nauseated.  

Since there is no conscious memory of her mother reacting with disgust and no conscious guilt or shame, she will probably be confused as to why she feels nauseated when she touches herself or when her partner touches her genitals.

She might go from one medical doctor to the next, taking expensive medical tests and spending a lot of money trying to find out why she gets an upset stomach during sex.  And given the cause, the doctors don't find anything physically wrong with her.  They might tell her that her nausea is "idiopathic," which just means that the cause is unknown.  

If she's fortunate enough to see a medical doctor who suspects a psychological cause for her nauseau during sex, she might be referred to a psychotherapist.  

If she's really lucky, she might find a therapist who works somatically using the mind-body connection so that her early trauma can get worked through by uncoupling the shame from sexual pleasure.  This uncoupling would free her to enjoy sex (see my articles: Using Somatic Psychotherapy When the Client Has No Words to Describe the Problem and Somatic Experiencing: Tuning Into the Mind-Body Connection).

A Common Adult Experience of Yucking Somebody's Yum

It often takes a lot of courage for someone to share their sexual fantasies and desires with a sexual partner--even if the sexual partner is a romantic partner or a spouse.  

A Woman Showing Disgust For Her Partner's Sexual Fantasy

When those fantasies and desires are considered unconventional, like kink or BDSM (bondage, discipline/dominance, sadism/submission and masochism), the partner might express disgust, shock or some other form of disapproval, which would be shaming for the person who made him or herself emotionally vulnerable enough to talk about their desires (see my article: What is Power Play? and Destigmatizing Sexual Fantasies About Power and Submission).

To be sure, no one should ever be forced into doing anything they don't want to do sexually. At the same time, it's much less hurtful for a partner to respond tactfully that they wouldn't find these activities appealing and then come up with their own suggestions to reassure their partner that they still want to have sex and bond with them emotionally.

Conclusion

Parental expressions of disgust for a child who is masturbating can have a lasting detrimental impact on a child throughout their life, especially when it comes from a parent.  

As the child becomes an adult, the impact can ruin adult romantic and sexual relationships.

In adult relationships, romantic and sexual partners can also inadvertently shame their significant other when they express disgust or disapproval for certain sexual acts desired by their partner.

As long as these sexual acts are between consenting adults, it's important to be respectful of other people's choices rather than being judgmental or critical.  

You have the right to dislike a sexual act and the right not to engage in it, but you don't have the right to shame anyone, so be tactful and kind.

About Me

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

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and people in relationships (see my article: What is Sex 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.

Coping With Emotional Distress By Using the Somatic Experiencing Technique of Pendulation to Calm Yourself

In my prior article, Global Pandemic Causes Significant Increase in Anxiety and Depression, according to the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), there has been a 25% increase in pandemic-related anxiety and depression.  

WHO also indicates that this increase in anxiety and depression is probably just the tip of the iceberg.  

Given these circumstances, individuals who are struggling emotionally need a way to cope with these emotions, and one way to cope is using pendulation.

Using Pendulation to Cope With Emotional Distress

What is Pendulation and How Can It Help You to Cope With Emotional Distress?

Pendulation is a concept which is part of Somatic Experiencing (SE) (see my article: Mind-Body Oriented Therapy: Somatic Experiencing).

SE is a mind-body oriented therapy, developed by Dr. Peter Levine, which helps individuals to heal from trauma.

Pendulation is a useful technique to help individuals to cope with distressing emotions--like the pandemic-related emotions described in my previous article or any other type of distressing emotion, including emotions related to psychological trauma.

Similar to the pendulum on a clock, pendulation involves a shifting back and forth of emotions or body sensations.

Pendulation is Similar to the Movement of a Pendulum on a Clock

Specifically, you start by identifying the distressful emotion or bodily sensation you're experiencing and locate it in your body.  

After you notice the distressful emotion/sensation and where it's located in your body, you find a neutral or calm point in your body and you shift your awareness back and forth (or pendulate) between the distressful and calm experiences.

An Example of Pendulation

For instance, if you identified sadness as the distressful emotion and you locate the sadness as being in your throat where you feel a constriction (a welling up of tears), you sense into other parts of your body to find a calm or neutral point.  

Let's say you detect a sense of calmness in your chest.  You stay with that sense of calmness for a moment to give yourself a chance to experience it.

Then, move back to the sadness in your throat and stay with that for a moment before you go back to the calmness in your chest. 

As you keep going back and forth between the sadness and the calmness, you are pendulating between the two emotions.

As you continue to pendulate back and forth, notice what how the sadness changes.  There is usually a shift due to the integration of the two emotions.

If you have difficulty finding a calm or neutral place within yourself, you can find an external resource, like looking at a glass of water or looking out the window at a tree, and so on.

What If You're Unable to Identify the Distressful Emotion?

There are many individuals with a history of trauma who have difficulty identifying emotions, especially distressful ones.  

They might know they're struggling with a difficult emotion, but they don't know if it's anger, sadness or any other emotion.

If this sounds familiar to you, you can still use pendulation even if you can't identify the emotion.  

For instance, you might know you have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, but you don't associate any particular emotion with that sensation.

Even without knowing the distressful emotion, you can still locate an area in your body where you don't feel that sinking feeling--where you feel neutral or calm.  Then, you can shift your awareness back and forth between those two areas.

If you're working with an SE therapist, over time, you can learn to identify your emotions.  This takes practice. 

Even before you learn to identify specific emotions, you can use pendulation as a self help technique between therapy sessions to calm yourself.

How Does Pendulation Facilitate Emotional Healing?

According to Dr. Levine, pendulation is a natural process that facilitates emotional healing within the nervous system.

As previously mentioned, the shifting back and forth allows for an integration of these emotions, which facilitates healing.  

Pendulation Facilitates Emotional Healing

Whereas before you might have felt stuck in your distress, after you learn pendulation, you feel more emotionally resourced.  

Over time, as you sense the integration of emotions, you gain confidence that you can cope with uncomfortable emotions and you won't get stuck in a distressed state.  

About Me

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

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

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.

Common Reactions to the COVID-19 Crisis: Waves of Grief

During the current COVID-19 crisis, many people have told me that their grief about the crisis, which is similar to the grief that you might feel for other losses, comes in waves (see my article: Grieving Losses During a Crisis).  They told me that they might feel fine one moment and then they suddenly feel a wave of grief pass over them.

Common Reactions to the COVID-19 Crisis: Waves of Grief 

Waves of Grief During a Crisis Are Common
Just like any other loss, the grief that people are feeling during this health crisis is real and understandable.  So much of life, including in-person contact with loved ones, has been upended, and this is a significant loss.

The fact that no one really knows how long this crisis might last can intensify your grief.  For instance, if you knew that the crisis was going to last another 30, 60 or 90 days, you would have an idea of when you might experience light at the end of the tunnel. However, at this point in time, although there are various projections, no one seems to know for sure when this pandemic will end in the United States.  So, it can feel like it's endless and the losses are permanent.

Emotions often come in waves.  When I'm working with a psychotherapy client and doing trauma therapy, I usually can expect to see the waves of emotion--whether it's sadness, fear, anger, or whatever emotion the client is experiencing.

Before doing trauma work in therapy, I provide psychoeducation about the work, including how emotions usually rise, reach a peak and subside.  One of things I do while working with a traumatized client is to track these waves of emotion as well as the discharge of these emotions by observing how the client reacts during therapy (see my article: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation About How Therapy Works).

When you cry, sigh, yawn or feel waves of emotion throughout your body, from a Somatic Psychotherapy perspective, you're discharging energy or emotions.  Although it might be unpleasant to go through a wave of negative emotion, it's usually better to allow yourself to feel it and allow it to go through you than to try to stop it because when you feel the emotion and allow it to discharge, you're self regulating your mind and your body.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: A Normal Response to a Crisis: Waves of Grief
The following fictional clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases, illustrates how grief is felt and discharged during a trauma therapy session:

Alice
When Alice learned that her husband, who was a firefighter, had died at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attack, she was shocked and felt emotionally numb.  All she could think was that she was having a nightmare and any moment she would wake up and she would realize that it had all been a bad dream.

As her shock wore off a few weeks later, Alice felt very angry because she heard that her husband and the other first responders at the World Trade Center site didn't have the proper equipment to communicate with their superiors.  She felt such rage towards everyone involved because she believed that her husband would have survived if only he had the proper equipment.

She also felt rage when she heard that there had been warnings at the Federal level about the possibility of a terrorist attack that went unheeded.  From her perspective, she couldn't believe her husband was dead due to the incompetenence at such a high level.

She received a lot of support from the fire department's counseling unit as well as individual firefighters who worked with him, friends, family and neighbors. But she still felt alone and lonely as waves of grief washed over her.

A few months later, Alice decided to start therapy because she was feeling overwhelmed by the loss of her husband.  She felt enveloped by grief all the time, and she didn't have a sense of relief from it.

At the recommendation of a friend, Alice sought therapy with an experiential therapist who was a trauma therapist.  As part of the psychoeducation Alice received in her therapy, she lealrned that, in fact, grief comes in waves and she became more aware of periods of when her grief was heightened and when it had somewhat subsided for a period of time (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy)

Before this, Alice hadn't paid attention to the wave-like experience of grief that ebbed and flowed.  Her therapist explained that similar to physical pain, emotional pain had a rise, a peak and a reduction similar to a wave.  Her therapist told her that many people who have physical pain can learn in therapy how to detect their waves of pain rather than believing that they have constant intense pain all the time.

Developing an awareness of the ebbs and flows to grief is an awareness that's similar to mindfulness.  The client learns to maintain a dual awareness of experiencing the pain (physical or emotional) at the same time that s/he is observing her reactions.

With guidance and practice, being able to maintain this dual awareness is a skill that can be learned in trauma therapy with a therapist who practices experiential psychotherapy.

 At first, Alice struggled with the observing part of the dual awareness.  She felt too immersed in her grief to do anything other than experience it.  But, over time, gradually, Alice learned to be more aware of her waves of grief as well as the dissipation or discharge of it when she cried, which brought emotional relief.

In learning to be more mindful of the grief she was feeling, it was as if Alice developed another part of her mind that was slightly outside the experience.  In psychotherapy jargon, this would be called "an observing ego."

Alice learned from her psychotherapist that:

• When we speak of an observing ego, we're speaking metaphorically.  It's not like we can physically locate an observing ego in the brain.  It represents a healthy split in consciousness where a part of the mind witnesses what's going on for the individual.  

• The observing ego allows us to perceive change in ourselves, and this is what allows people who are experiencing physical or emotional pain to witness their own experience.

• Not only does the observing ego allow us to witness our reactions and changes in our reactions, it also grants us a sense of agency and we feel empowered by it because it can guide us to do what's best for ourselves.

• Most people have an observing ego to a greater or lesser degree.  If you've ever had the sense of observing your reactions to a particular situation, your observing ego was at work.

• The ability to strengthen the observing ego can be learned in experiential therapy.

• There is usually a discharge, which can be very subtle, at the end of a cycle of emotion.  This discharge, which is often a letting go of emotion or subtle physical energy can come in different forms, including crying, yawning, sighing or feeling small waves of energy move through the body.

Being able to observe the ebb of flow of her grief at any given time, Alice no longer felt like she was "going crazy" when a tidal wave of grief came over her for no apparent reason.  Similarly, when she observed that she was feeling a little better or she was able to enjoy a visit with a friend or laugh at a joke, she realized this was also normal and it was part of the cycle of grief that she felt on most days.

After helping Alice to develop coping skills and techniques, her therapist talked to Alice about EMDR therapy to help Alice heal (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy?,  How Does EMDR Therapy Work? and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

As Alice continued with her EMDR therapy sessions, she still missed her husband on most days, but she no longer felt overwhelmed by her grief.  She also realized the periods of time when she felt on an even keel emotionally were getting longer and more frequent.  Gradually, her sense of relief expanded and she had more full days when she felt a sense of well-being.

Conclusion

Even though the fictional vignette above deals with the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, the concept of wave of grief applies to other losses and crises.

People experience grief when they go through major losses, whether it's the loss of a relationship, the loss of a job, a downturn in their finances, and so on.  Grief isn't only about death.

As mentioned earlier, grief is a normal and common response to loss.  Since the current pandemic encompasses losses on many different levels, both emotional and practical, it makes sense that many people are experiencing grief.

A wave is like a crescendo.  It has a rise, a peak and a fall.  Developing an awareness of this cycle and the observing ego to recognize it is part of experiential therapy.  

When a client develops this mindful awareness of their own emotional process, s/he experiences a sense of agency and control over herself and her emotions in situations that are often uncontrollable.

Getting Help in Therapy

Although grief is a common and normal response to loss, including the losses that many people are experiencing during this pandemic, attending experiential therapy, like EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP therapy, and other forms of experiential therapy, helps you to heal faster than if you were to try to overcome it on your own or if you were in regular talk therapy.

An experiential therapist can teach you the skills and guide you through the grieving process in a way that you can't do it on your own.

Rather than suffering alone, help is available to you.

Many psychotherapists, including me, are providing online therapy (also called telehealth, teletherapy or telemental health) during the COVID-19 crisis while we're unable to do in-person therapy in our offices due to the need for physical distancing (see my article: The Advantages of Online Therapy When You Can't See Your Therapist in Person).

Working through grief with an experienced psychotherapist can help to alleviate your emotional pain.

About Me

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

Emotionally Focused Therapy is available for couples therapy.

I'm currently providing online therapy while I'm out of my office during the COVID-19 crisis.

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.