Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are

In a prior blog article, I began a discussion about parts work, also known as ego states therapy and how working with the various aspects of yourself in therapy, particularly the unconscious parts, can help to discover and overcome many emotional problems.  

In this article, I'm expanding upon this topic with regard to understanding the different aspects of yourself that make you who you are (see my article: Making the Unconscious Conscious).

Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself

What Does It Mean to Have Different Aspects of Self?
We tend to think of ourselves as being unitary beings, but we're really not unitary beings. We're actually made up of many different parts that make up the whole.

In this article, when I refer to "parts," "selves" or "aspects of selves," which are all different ways of referring to the same thing, I'm not referring to multiple personality disorder.  

Instead, I'm referring to what is common in all of us--the fact that within each of us there are many subpersonalities which make up who we are.

At any given time, one or more of these subpersonalities might be predominant.  Most of the time, we don't notice these changes, unless it is such a departure from how we normally are that it gets our attention.

How Does It Help to Understand the Different Aspects of Yourself?
In a prior article, Overcoming the Internal Critic, I discussed a particular aspect of self that is problematic for many people, the internal critic.

The internal critic is an example of a part or aspect of self that comes to the surface at certain times and undermines a person's confidence.

Another example of a part is the "inner child," which John Bradshaw writes about in his books.  We all hold within us the "inner child" as well as the "inner teenager" and many other parts.

Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself

It's helpful to understand the different aspects of yourself in order to understand yourself and what aspects might be operating at any particular time.

So for example, if you're continually getting into unhealthy romantic relationships, even though you keep telling yourself that you want to make healthier choices, chances are good that there is a part of yourself that is unconscious, and it is at the root of the problem.

Working with a therapist who does ego states therapy (parts work), you can get to know this part better as you work with your therapist to make the unconscious conscious.

Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself

The idea isn't to demonize or pathologize any part.  On the contrary, the goal is to be compassionate and get to know what this part needs and how it can be fulfilled in a way that is healthy instead of going from one unhealthy relationship to another.

All of this might sound very abstract, so let's take a look at a fictionalized example of how an unconscious part can operate in a particular situation and what can be done in therapy to overcome this problem:

Alice
Alice came to therapy following the end of another unhappy relationship.

At the point when she came to therapy, she felt hopeless that she could ever be in a healthy relationship because several prior relationships ended in the same way, leaving Alice feeling hurt and disappointed. She also felt that maybe there was something wrong with her since all of her relationships ended in disaster.

I introduced the idea of "parts" to Alice, which she intuitively understood.  She knew that she felt different ways at different times--some days she felt more confident than she did on other days and sometimes she was particularly critical of herself, and so on.

She described her last three relationships as being emotionally abusive.  Her boyfriends tended to be self involved men who cheated on her with different women.

Even after she discovered the infidelity, Alice's pattern was to remain in these relationships to try to win back the boyfriend that she was seeing at the time.

Even though there was a part of her that knew that her boyfriend would keep cheating on her, she felt compelled to stay in the relationship and try to win her boyfriend back.

When I asked her to remember how she felt about herself when she went against the part of her that her urged judgement, she described feeling a combination of self loathing, anger, sadness and fear.  She said she felt these emotions in her chest and upper stomach.

We used the affect bridge technique, which is a method that is used in clinical hypnosis and also used in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy (see my articles:  What is Clinical Hypnosis? and EMDR Therapy and the Brain).

I asked Alice to go back to her earliest memory of feeling these emotions--the self loathing, anger, sadness and fear.

Alice remembered the time when she was five and her father was packing to move out of the family home.  Alice overheard her parents' arguments and she knew her father was leaving the family for another woman.

At the time, as most children do at an early age, she blamed herself and begged her father to stay, but her father paid no attention to her.  He packed and left without saying a word.

At the time, her mother was depressed and tended to isolate herself in her room, so she wasn't emotionally available for Alice.

Throughout her childhood, Alice blamed herself for her father leaving.  She was convinced that if only she had tried harder to be a good girl, her father would have loved her more than he loved the other woman, and he would have stayed.

Alice described her father as being a handsome, intelligent man, who could be charming when he wanted to be.  In hindsight, she also described him as being highly narcissistic.

Later on in the session, as we were debriefing, Alice recognized the connection between her former boyfriends and her father.  Her boyfriends also tended to be handsome, charming, intelligent men, who were narcissistic.

She also recognized that she experienced the same intense feelings with her boyfriends as she did with her father and this was why she became so determined to hang in and try to make the relationships work despite the infidelity (see my article:  Discovering the Unconscious Emotions at the Root of Your Current Problems).

Alice realized that she was recreating the same childhood experience in her adult life and hoping for different results.  In psychotherapy, this is phenomenon is known as repetition compulsion.

Alice realized that there was a part of her from childhood that was active in her unhealthy relationships.

Alice had to work hard to develop compassion and curiosity about this young part of herself and not to be critical.

We continued to work with this part of Alice to discover what this young part needed.  In doing so, we discovered that this young part needed nurturing parents.  

So, we used imaginal work to help Alice to imagine ideal parents.  Alice imagined parents who were loving, nurturing, understanding and who would never leave her.

Even though Alice understood the difference between her actual family history and the imaginal work that we were doing, and that her real parents were nothing like the ideal parents that she imagined, the imaginal work was still healing (see my article: Healing Trauma With New Symbolic Memories to understand how this therapeutic technique works).

The ideal parents that Alice created while doing imaginal work were internal resources that she could call on at any time.

As we continued to do this imaginal work, Alice was able to overcome the childhood trauma that was at the root of her relationship problems (see my article: Overcoming the Traumatic Effects of Childhood Trauma).

When Alice was ready to date again, she no longer felt drawn to men who were narcissistic and unkind, so she was able to enter into a healthy relationship for the first time in her life.

Conclusion
Recurring problems that haven't been resolved in regular talk therapy often have an unconscious aspect that remains undiscovered and which is at the root of these problems.

Using various therapeutic methods, like clinical hypnosis, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing help to get to the root of these unconscious aspects.

Once the unconscious aspects have been made conscious, a therapist, who uses these treatment modalities, can help the client to discover what the part needs.  Imaginal work is one way to provide for the part's unmet needs.

Usually, once the part's needs have been met, the part no longer gets triggered to create problems.

For the sake of simplicity, I gave a scenario where there was only one unconscious part, but there can be many unconscious parts.

Using experiential therapy can make the unconscious conscious, find out what the part needs, and use therapeutic methods, like imaginal work, to help heal that part (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have been unable to resolve problems on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who uses experiential therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy

Problems which remain unresolved in traditional talk therapy often respond to experiential therapy like clinical hypnosis, Ego States therapy, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing.

Rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from getting help in therapy and working with a psychotherapist uses experiential therapy.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, Ego States 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.

Overcoming the Confusion Between Compassion and Responsibility in Therapy

In Part 1 and Part 2 on the topic of confusing compassion and responsibility, I began discussing the problem that many adults, who traumatized as children, have with this issue.

Confusing Compassion With Responsibility:  This  Pattern Often Begins in Childhood

As I mentioned in the prior articles, traumatized children often take on the responsibilities of the parents in a dysfunctional family where one or both parents are impaired due to mental illness, substance abuse or some other problem.

Developmentally, the responsibilities that these children take on is way beyond what any child should ever have to do.  But they do it because they have become "parentified children" who function beyond their years in order to rescue their parent(s) and/or other siblings.

As parentified children, they develop distorted beliefs, which include confusing compassion and responsibility, and they usually continue to perpetuate this problem in their adult relationships, often with disastrous consequences.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my prior article, most of the time, adults who had these experiences as children never get help in therapy.  As a result, they often go from one destructive relationship to the next without even realizing that they're repeating patterns from their childhood.

Even when they come to therapy, they often have a hard time letting go of their distorted beliefs--even when they're able to see it logically.  This is usually because these beliefs have a tremendous hold on them emotionally.

To illustrate the dynamic that I've been discussing, I've presented a scenario below that is a composite of many different cases to protect confidentiality:

Ed

Ed came to therapy because he just ended another unhappy relationship, and he was beginning to despair that he might never be in a healthy relationship.

As we went over his family history, Ed described a highly dysfunctional family where his father drank excessively and hit Ed and his younger siblings, and his mother gambled most of the family's money.

Ed grew up feeling that it was his responsibility to take care of his siblings.  

When Ed's father got drunk, he would often hit Ed and his younger siblings.  As the oldest, Ed would try to shield his siblings from their father's blows, which only angered the father even more and made him more abusive.

Ed grew up feeling that if his father was physically abusive towards him, it must be because he deserved it.  

He believed that if he could be the "best son" that a parent would want to have, his father would stop drinking and his mother would stop gambling, so he tried as hard as he could do be "perfect."  

Confusing Compassion and Responsibility

But since this was a distorted belief, there's no such thing as a "perfect" person, and his behavior had no bearing on his parents' problems, his efforts never worked the way he hoped they would. 

When the father was out drinking and the mother went to the casino, Ed took care of his siblings, cooking for them, washing their clothes, helping them with their homework, and so on.

This often meant that, rather than go out and play with his friends, Ed would stay home with his brothers and sisters and take care of their needs.

During the times when his mother gambled away the family money, Ed would take on jobs before school, like delivering newspapers, to try to make up for the short fall so the family would have food.

Even though life was very difficult for Ed, there were times when his father would vow to stop drinking and the mother would say she would stop gambling, and life seemed like it was going to be normal for a short time.

During those times, Ed felt a great deal of love and compassion for each of his parents, and he knew that they were struggling emotionally.

Unfortunately, those times never lasted very long.  After a while, the father would begin drinking again and the mother would return to gambling, and the household would be chaotic again.

This cycle was repeated over and over again.

Each time that his parents attempted to have some normalcy in their lives, Ed hoped that it would last.  But each time he was disappointed.

When it came time to go to college, Ed chose a local college so he could continue to live at home and help his younger siblings.

He was so accustomed to juggling home and school that he didn't realize that he was exhausting himself.  Eventually, he got sick and was bed ridden.

During that time, his maternal aunt came to visit from out of state.  Shortly after she arrived, she realized how bad things were and she gave Ed's parents an ultimatum--either get help or she would contact Children's Services to report their neglect.

After that, things began to improve at home, which was a relief for Ed, but the emotional damage was already done.

As Ed entered into one romantic relationship after another, he continued to perpetuate the same dynamic that he grew up with as a child.  

The women that he chose initially seemed emotionally healthy but, over time, it would come to light that they either had a drinking problem, a drug problem or a gambling problem.  

Confusing Compassion and Responsibility

Ed felt compassion for each of his girlfriends, and he would feel, as the boyfriend in a committed relationship, that he had to do everything that he could to try to help each of these women.  But each time it was the same--he would exhaust himself physically, emotionally and sometimes financially, but he couldn't save any of them.

His friends would tell him that he was so focused on his girlfriend at the time that he wasn't taking care of himself.  On on intellectual level, Ed understood this, but on an emotionally level, Ed felt compelled to continue to try to take responsibility for each of these women.

After several disastrous relationships, Ed came to therapy and we were able to trace back his pattern to early childhood.  

We began working on the earlier experiences that were impacting his adult life using EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Processing therapy, which is a therapy that was developed for trauma (see my article:  What is EMDR?)

Even though Ed knew that his beliefs about compassion and responsibility were distorted, these beliefs remained very strong for him on an emotional level.

As is often in the case when this happens in therapy, there was a part of a young part of him, a child self, that wouldn't allow Ed to overcome his early experiences.

So, having seen this many times in similar situations, I asked Ed to ask his younger self what he felt he needed.  

Tuning Into Ed's Younger Self

As Ed tuned into this younger part of himself, he sensed the younger self letting him know that he felt he couldn't allow Ed to let go of the trauma without feeling that his parents were taken care of.

As an adult, Ed knew that his parents had overcome their problems when he was 20.  But his younger self, who acted as the container for those earlier memories, was stuck at an earlier time when the father was still abusing alcohol and the mother was still gambling.

At first, Ed was confused because he couldn't understand why this younger part of himself was stuck in the past and had not gotten caught up with the present reality.  

So, I explained to Ed that we are all made up of many different aspects, including the adult self, the teenage self, the child self and many other selves (see my article:  Psychotherapy and "Parts" Work).

This is a normal experience.  This has nothing to do with multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder.  

It so happened that in Ed's case, as often occurs for adults who were abused and traumatized as children, that this younger self was the repository for these earlier memories and remained stuck emotionally.

So, in order for the therapy to progress, we had to take care of this younger self's needs first.

Over time, through gentle exploration, we discovered that this younger self would be willing to allow Ed, as an adult, let go of his distorted beliefs if he felt that Ed's parents had ideal parents that would have taken care of each of them so they wouldn't have grown up to be so unhappy that they used alcohol and gambling to deal with their unhappiness.

Of course, there's no way to actually change the past, but one effective strategy is for the client to use his or her imagination to overcome this treatment impasse.

So, guided by what Ed's younger self communicated that he needed, Ed began to imagine the kind of idealized parents that his father and mother would have needed.  

I helped guide Ed so that he could use his imagination to make each of these idealized parents as vivid as possible with all of the qualities that his younger self felt was necessary.

Then, we took each of those images and Ed imagined his mother as a baby being held and loved by her idealized parents.  He imagined his mother growing up as a young child, a teenager and as an adult with these idealized parents who were loving and nurturing so that Ed's mother grew up to be a loving mother towards Ed and his siblings.

Ed did the same thing for his father--imagining him with loving, nurturing parents, so that his father also grew up to be a loving father towards Ed and his siblings.

By using his imagination, facilitated by an EMDR technique of using tappers to strengthen this experience, Ed created a new symbolic memory (see my article:  Mind-Body Psychotherapy: Healing Trauma With New Symbolic Memories).

The interesting thing about using your imagination in this way is that, even though the logical part of your brain knows that things didn't really happen this way, the emotional part of your mind experiences it as if it  happened, so that it becomes a healing experience.

There are some clients who difficulty with this because they remain so aware that reality was so different from what they imagined that they have a hard time allowing themselves to suspend disbelief.

For those clients, I usually gently ask them try suspending disbelief for the sake of the exercise so we can see what happens.  Most of the time, they're able to experience the healing that comes with this.

Ed was open to using his imagination and, afterwards, he discovered that his younger self felt taken care of to the point where he was able to allow Ed's adult self to process his traumatic experiences.

Over time, Ed mourned for the childhood that he wished that he had.  This was an important step for him.  

Many people avoid coming to therapy because they fear that they'll be overwhelmed by their grief.  But if they have a good rapport with their therapist and the therapist can provide a "holding environment," most people discover that letting go of their grief isn't nearly as upsetting as they had anticipated (see my article: Creating a Holding Environment in Psychotherapy).

Gradually, Ed learned to distinguish compassion from taking responsibility.  He discovered that he could feel compassion for someone, but he didn't have to take on their problems.

As he continued to make progress in therapy, Ed also no longer felt the need to rescue women that were in trouble.  He learned that it wasn't his responsibility to "save" them. 

A Healthy Relationship

Over time, he was also attracted to healthier women, so he was able to enter into a relationship that was healthy and satisfying for the first time in his life.

Getting Help in Therapy

The scenario that I presented in this article is, unfortunately, common for adults who were abused and traumatized as children.

Getting Help in Therapy

If this scenario seems familiar to you because you had similar experiences, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience working with trauma.

You can overcome emotional trauma that's keeping you stuck and unhappy.  

Making the decision to get help is the first step.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individuals and adults.

Helping clients to overcome trauma is one of my specialities.

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. 

Empowering Clients in Therapy - Part 2: Clinical Issues

In Empowering Clients in Therapy - Part 1, I began discussing some of the basic ways that psychotherapists can empower clients in therapy.  In this article, I'll discuss clinical issues involved with empowering clients.

Empowering Clients in Therapy

Empowering Clients Clinically 
Empowering clients clinically is often one of the goals of therapy.

There are many ways to do this in therapy--too many to write about in one article.  So, I'll focus on how I do this using EMDR therapy, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (see my articles:  What is EMDR?, How Does EMDR Work? Part 1: EMDR and the Brain and How Does EMDR Work? Part 2: Overcoming Trauma).

Many of the clinical strategies that I'm about to describe are used in other times of therapy.  The ones that I've chosen are the ones that I've often found to be most effective.

Helping Clients to Develop Internal Resources
What are internal resources? See my article:  Psychotherapy: Developing Internal Resources).

On the most basic level, internal resources are coping strategies.

Most people have developed some coping strategies just to survive, but it's useful to develop new internal resources that help clients to go beyond just surviving.  This is especially true when clients are about to begin processing traumatic emotional experiences in therapy.

Before processing traumatic experiences, I help clients to develop internal resources that they can use to calm and soothe themselves in session as well as between sessions.

A Safe or Relaxing Place:
Being able to close your eyes and to see in your mind's eye a relaxing place provides a respite from difficult material in therapy or at any time when you're feeling anxious or uncomfortable (see my article: Wellness: Safe or Relaxing Place Meditation).

Empowering Clients in Therapy:  A Safe or Relaxing Place

It helps you to breathe more easily and decide if you want to resume processing a traumatic memory or if you want to take a break in the therapy session.

Butterfly Taps:
This is a resource that I learned in training with Laurel Parnell, Ph.D., who is a world-renown expert, based in California, in EMDR therapy.  It's another resource that clients can use either in session or between sessions.

To do butterfly taps, you place your right hand on your left upper arm and your left hand on your right upper arm (so arms are crossed) and you alternate taps rhythmically at a speed that feels comfortable for you.  The tapping is soothing and helps you to calm down.

Interweaves
Using interweaves is another resource that I learned from Laurel Parnell, Ph.D.

Most of the time, interweaves are used in EMDR when clients feel stuck in the processing of traumatic material.

Interweaves help to:

• integrate memory networks
• differentiate memory networks
• create a coherent narrative
• create a broader perspective

To determine which interweave would be best to use, the therapist asks the client what s/he needs at that moment.   The client is usually the best judge of what s/he needs.

Sometimes, when clients are stuck, they're not sure what they need at that moment, so the therapist, being attuned to the client, can different suggestions to see if any of them resonate with the client.

There are many different types of interweaves, including imagining:

• nurturing figures
• protector figures
• inner wisdom figures
• other types of figures that the client feels would be helpful

The reason why resource interweaves are developed before the actual processing of the trauma memory is that the therapist wants the client to have these interweaves in mind if the processing becomes difficult.

Empowering Clients in Therapy:  Resource Interweaves:  A Protector Figure

In case the client gets stuck, s/he can use the resource interweave to get the therapeutic work back on track.

So, for instance, if a client is processing a memory using EMDR therapy about childhood physical abuse and she feels stuck because she is in touch with her "child self" and she feels frightened by the person who abused her, she can call on a protector figure in her mind to imagine that person protecting her in the situation.

This protector figure can be someone real (someone from the past or the present) or imagined (from a movie, TV program, book, and so on).  The protector figure could also be the client's "adult self" who helps his or her "child self" in the client's mind's eye.

The "Ideal Mother" Interweave
Another example of an imaginal interweave is imagining an ideal mother who is loving, attuned, soothing and protective as well as powerful (or whatever qualities a client would need in an ideal mother).

An ideal mother is usually the type of mother that the client wishes s/he had.  If the client feels stuck in processing a traumatic memory, s/he can imagine an ideal mother with all the attributes that s/he wished she had.

Like all of these resources, they can be used even if the client isn't in EMDR therapy.

Empowering Clients in Therapy:  Imaginal Interweave:  Ideal Mother 

If you haven't experienced using imaginal interweaves, they might sound silly, fantastic or unrealistic.  But most clients feel soothed by the ideal mother and it "makes sense" to the emotional part of the brain.   In effect, it creates a new symbolic memory in the emotional part of the brain (see my article:  Healing Trauma With New Symbolic Memories).

It doesn't effect narrative/biographical memory which, of course, knows who the actual mother was when the client was a child.

Sometimes, clients feel guilty imagining an ideal mother because they feel that they're being disloyal to their actual mother.  In that case, a client can imagine that the ideal mother is a co-mother, as Laurel Parnell suggests.

There are times when clients feel enmeshed with their parents and the idea of imagining an ideal mother feels like they're abandoning their actual mother, so they can imagine giving their actual mothers an ideal mother as well.

This can also be used for earlier generations so that the client can imagine that the grandmother had an ideal mother so that the grandmother could have been nurturing to the mother and mother could have been nurturing to the client.

Most clients respond very well to imaginal resources, but there are some clients who say, "But I know that I didn't have an ideal mother," to which I respond, "Try suspending disbelief and see how it feels." Almost always, if the client can suspend disbelief, s/he feels relieved by the imaginal resource and the work gets back on track.

What Does the Client Need?
Everyone is different.  The particular client's needs determine the type of clinical intervention used to empower him or her.

Sometimes, clients come up with their own resources.

They might use art work, prose, poetry, dance or some other creative endeavor to empower themselves.

Empowering Clients in Therapy:  Keeping a Journal Between Sessions

Many clients find journal writing to be empowering and an important bridge between sessions, and this is something that I recommend.

The possibilities are endless.

Empowering Clients in Therapy
People often come to therapy because they're feeling disempowered in one way or another in their lives--either due to their history, their current situations or some combination of both.

When the client is assisted in therapy to be more empowered, the client usually feels better able to tackle problems, overcome traumatic memories and have a sense of a hopeful future.

Discovering that they had the power within themselves all along is one of the best discoveries that a client can make in therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you've been on the fence about starting therapy, you're not alone.

If your own efforts to overcome your problems haven't worked out for you, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional whose priority is helping to empower clients.

When you find a skilled and empathic therapist who is a good match for you, you might be surprised to discover the progress that you can make in therapy.

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

Getting to the Core of Your Problems With Experiential Therapy

Often, when people come to therapy, they have only a general sense that something is wrong. 

It's up to the therapist to help clients to get clarity about what the problem is so clients can heal.  When clients come to see me in my psychotherapy practice in New York City, I help them to get to the core of their problems.

Getting to the Core of Your Problems With Experiential Therapy

The Process of Getting to the Core of Your Problems Using the With the Mind-Body Connection
Getting from a general sense of unease to the core of your problems in Experiential Therapy is a process (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

It's not unusual that when clients to come to therapy for several problems that are occurring at the same time, the core issue is often the same.

Clinical Vignette
The following scenario, which is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality, illustrates how Experiential Therapy works:

Pete
When Pete began therapy, he was feeling lonely, socially isolated and unfilled in his career.

Pete had a general sense that he was unhappy but, other than that, he was at complete loss.

Over time, as we continued to explore Pete's feelings, we focused on his emotions and where he was sensing his loneliness and dissatisfaction in his body (see my article: Experiential Therapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

It took Pete a while before he could learn to sense his emotions in his body.  But, with his therapist's help, when he did, he sensed his feelings in his chest.  And, as soon as he was able to pinpoint where he felt his emotions, the words that came to him were, "I'm not good enough."

This took Pete by surprise, but he said it fit how he was feeling.  He said these words completely encapsulated the feeling he had about himself throughout his life.

We used the words, "I'm not good enough" to go back to the earliest time when he felt this way about himself.

As we continued to explore this, we went back to earlier and earlier memories, and it became clear that this feeling was longstanding and it was related to severe criticism from his father that Pete endured from an early age.

We knew, of course, that we couldn't change the past.  But we could work in therapy to help Pete to heal from these trauma experiences.

Over time, although it wasn't quick or easy, Pete was able to work through his feelings of worthlessness which were at the core of his social isolation, loneliness, and career dissatisfaction.

Gradually, as he began to feel better about himself, he went out more, made friends, and began dating.  He also found a job that he liked a lot more.

The Process of Getting to Core Problem Begins With the Mind-Body Connection
All of this began by getting to the core of the problem using the mind-body connection rather than an intellectual process of just talking about it.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy
If you've been struggling with a general sense that something is wrong, but you've been unable to get to the core of your problems, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist who has a mind-body orientation to therapy.

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

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy: Healing Trauma Creatively

Trauma can create emotional scars that can last a life time.  For many people suffering with trauma that occurred years ago, the emotional effects can feel as strong now as they did when the trauma originally occurred. 

Mind-Body Psychotherapy: Healing Trauma with New Symbolic Memories

Often, talk therapy is of limited help to overcome trauma.  You can gain an intellectual understanding about the trauma, but talk therapy doesn't always heal the trauma.  This often causes psychotherapy clients to feel that there's something wrong with them because they're still feeling traumatized even after they've completed talk therapy. Some forms of mind-body oriented psychotherapy can heal trauma by helping the client to create a new symbolic memory.

Clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, and Psychomotor therapy are among the forms of mind-body psychotherapy that help clients to overcome trauma through the creation of new symbolic memories.   Each of these treatment modalities approaches the creation of new symbolic memories in a different way.

At first glance, the idea of creating a new symbolic memory might sound strange, and you might wonder how someone would go about doing this.  But, in reality, it's not strange at all. 

But, first, before I explain what new symbolic memories are, I want to stress that creating a new symbolic memory is in no way negating the original memory.

In other words, the purpose of creating a new symbolic memory is not a way of saying that the original memory never occurred.

Mind-Body Psychotherapy: Healing Trauma with New Symbolic Memories

When we work on creating a new symbolic memory, the purpose is to providing emotional healing.  

The client and the therapist are aware at all times of what originally occurred in the trauma. 

The new symbolic memory, which is created in collaboration between the therapist and the client, is a new embodied experience, which often includes imagining helpful allies (either real or imagined) and other helpful aspects that were not available in the original traumatic memory.

The following composite vignette, which is a combination of many different cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality, illustrates how trauma can be healed through the creation of a new symbolic memory:

John:
John came to therapy because he never mourned the loss of his father, who died when John was 16 years old.  He loved his father very much and missed him, but he never allowed himself to grieve for his father, who died very unexpectedly.

Healing Trauma with New Symbolic Memories

John remembers coming home one afternoon, after hanging out with his friends, and finding his mother crying in the living room.  His mother told him that his father had a massive heart attack at work and he died immediately.  John was shocked.  He felt the tears welling up inside him, but before he could shed a tear, his mother said to him, "Now, John, you can't cry.  You're the man of the house now, and you need to be strong."

From that moment on, John felt the emotional burden that was placed on him, and he stopped himself from crying as he braced himself to be "the man" in his family.  He didn't want to disappoint his mother, and he felt he had to be "strong" for his younger brothers and sisters.

Years later, as an adult, John realized that his mother, although well meaning, had placed an unreasonable burden on him.  After all, he was only a boy at the time.  He also realized that not mourning had kept him in a kind of emotional limbo with regard to the loss of his father.  In the past, he attended talk therapy, hoping to finally release the feelings he had been holding onto for more than 20 years.  But, although he gained intellectual insight into what happened, he still couldn't allow himself to cry and mourn.

After taking a personal history and working on resource development (i.e., coping skills), John and I worked on his memory of the day his father died.  Using a combination of Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, we went back to the original memory.

  Memories

Throughout the process, John was in control at all times.  He said he felt alert and in a very relaxed state.  He was aware of what he felt in the  original memory as well as everything that was going on in the therapy room in the here-and-now.  This is called having a dual awareness (an awareness of the memory as well as the here-and-now), and this is essential for this type of work.

When we got to the part when John's mother told him that he shouldn't cry because he had to be "the man" in the family, I asked John who he would have liked to have with him at the time to help him.  I asked him to choose someone, either real or imagined, who could have helped him at that point to feel his feelings and to advocate for him with his mother.

John thought for a moment, and then he chose his Uncle Paul, his mother's brother.  He said his Uncle Paul was a very kind man and he had always felt close to his mother's brother.  He also knew that his mother admired her brother very much and he had a big influence on her.  So, when we went back to the part when his mother told John not to cry, John imagined what it would feel like to have his Uncle Paul standing next to him with his arm around him.

To make this experience as vivid as possible, we slowed down the process and I asked Paul to sense what it feels like to have Uncle Paul's arm around him on a physical and emotional level.  We took a few minutes to develop and amplify these physical and emotional feelings so Paul could experience fully the support he was getting from his uncle.

While John was sensing into this experience, he and I worked closely together to ensure that he felt safe and secure at all times.  He agreed to let me know if he became uncomfortable in any way.  I also observed his body language as well as his breathing, facial expression, changes in color, and other signs to ensure that he was comfortable in the experience.  I noticed that as he settled into the experience of his uncle being there for him, he looked more relaxed and he was breathing more easily.

When the therapist observes the client in this way, it's called "micro tracking" and this is an important part of the work.  The therapist must be attuned to what's happening with the client throughout the process.

Once John felt fully in the experience of being emotionally supported by his Uncle Paul, I asked him what he would like his uncle to say to his mother so that John would be allowed to feel his feelings.  John thought about this for a moment, and then said, "I'd like him to talk to her and tell her to let me cry--that it's normal, whether it's a teenage boy or anyone else, to cry when you lose your father.  He's he only one that my mother would listen to."

So, we went with that, and John imagined his Uncle Paul gently telling his mother that it's okay for John to cry.  John imagined Uncle Paul being gentle but firm about it.  Since John's mother admired and respected her brother, it was believable that she would listen to him.  John took a moment to feel this and he was able to tell me that he felt a great burden lifted from his shoulders and a tightness that was released from his chest.

Then, he told me that, in his mind's eye, he saw his mother back off and allow John to feel his feelings.  He felt like he was on the verge of crying, but something was holding him back.  I sensed that John might be concerned that his mother also needed someone to comfort her, but rather than suggest this to John, I asked him to sense into his body and ask himself what he thought might be holding him back.

I could tell, from watching him, that John was thinking about it rather than sensing into his body to find the answer.  So, I guided him to ask his body what was needed.  Now, this might sound strange, but it's no different than asking someone to use their intuition or to tap into their unconscious to sense what's needed.  The point is for the client to find the answer inside rather than just giving an answer that seems logical.  Certainly, logic has its place, but logic alone will often only get you so far, especially when dealing with trauma.

After a few minutes, John said he didn't feel he could allow himself to cry unless his mother was also being supported by someone.  So, I asked him who could be there for his mother.  He considered this for a few moments, and then he said his mother would be most comforted by her older sister.  So, we brought his maternal aunt into the scene, and he imagined his aunt sitting with his mother and comforting her.

Once John felt that his mother was being taken care of as well, and John had his uncle to comfort him, he allowed himself to cry in the session for the loss of his father.  This was the first time ever that John was able to cry.  All the emotion that had blocked inside of him came pouring out.  But rather than feeling overwhelmed, as he had always imagined he would feel if he allowed himself to cry, John said he felt a great sense of relief.  He felt secure and supported in the treatment room with me and he felt supported in the new symbolic memory by his Uncle Paul.

Afterwards, when we were talking about the experience, John said he could still feel his uncle's love and emotional support.  He knew that this new symbolic memory was not the original memory and that we were not saying we were in any way changing the original memory.  But he had a new, healing experience of that time.

In days and weeks that followed, we checked back in with the original memory.  I wanted to make sure that the work we did was more than just a one-time "feel good" experience and that John had actually internalized the new symbolic memory on an emotional as well as a visceral level.

Healing Trauma with New Symbolic Memories

John told me that the original memory no longer felt traumatic to him.  He felt loved and supported, as if he had actually gotten what he needed at the time.  He was also relieved to mourn his father.  From there, we worked on internalizing his father in other ways, including remembering all the good times he had with his father.  Prior to healing the trauma, John was too stuck emotionally to feel these positive experiences.

Getting Help in Therapy
As always, I want to emphasize that clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing are not "magic bullets."  Often, trauma can have many layers and it's not centralized in one memory.  Also, in order to do this work, the client must have the emotional resources to begin the trauma work.

In the example that I gave, for the sake of simplicity, I provided a vignette where the new symbolic experience worked in one session.  But this isn't always the case.  There can be many obstacles in doing this type of work that might need to be worked through.  This can take time.

Everyone is different, and there's no way to know in advance how a client will respond.  In the example that I gave, John was able to maintain dual awareness of the here-and-now as well as the memory.  If he was someone who became very dissociated during the experience, we might not able to work in this way or we might need to modify the work.

For some clients, who are naturally resilient and have strong internal resources, only a few sessions might be required for resource development prior to working on a new symbolic memory.  For other clients, who might have a long history of multiple traumas with little in the way of internal or external resources, it might take months of resource development.

It's also essential in this kind of work that the client and therapist have a good therapeutic rapport.  Clients with traumatic backgrounds often take a while to be able to build trust with a therapist, especially if they experienced serious breaches of trust or boundary violations as part of their personal history.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapist.  I have helped many clients to overcome trauma.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out 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.