The Problem With Emophilia: Falling In Love Too Hard and Too Fast

Emophilia means falling in love too hard and too fast (see my article: Falling In Love With the Fantasy Rather Than the Reality).

Falling In Love Too Hard and Too Fast

People with emophilia prioritize the exhilarating feeling of falling in love over the practical evaluation of a partner which often sabotages long term relationship success.

What Are the Problems With Emophilia?

The problem with emophilia is that it can lead to:

• Risky behavior
• Poor relationship choices
• Potential exploitation by a partner
• Heartbreak

People who have problems with emophilia often overlook red flags because they rush into relationships without knowing the other person. 

This also puts them at risk for getting involved with partners who have Dark Triad personality traits including:

• Narcissism
• Machiavellianism 
• Psychopathy

The impulsivity of emophilia results in unhealthy patterns, power imbalances and repeated cycles of intense highs followed by heartbreak as opposed to a stable, healthy connection.

Emophilia often overlaps with an anxious attachment style because these people seek intense attachments to feel whole or avoid rejection. 

Key Issues of Emophilia:

• Ignoring Red Flags: The intense rush of feelings overshadows the warning signs. This makes people ignore manipulative and toxic behavior. There is a tendency to only focus on their partner's seemingly positive traits while being in denial about the toxic traits.

• Attraction to Toxic Partners: These individuals tend to be attracted to people with Dark Triad traits (as mentioned earlier). This leads to a repetition of harmful relationships.

• Impulsive and Risk Behavior: This can include unsafe sex and making a commitment to a relationship before knowing the other person well (e.g., getting married or moving in quickly).

• Relationship Imbalance: An example of this is saying "I love you" too quickly which puts pressure on the other person and creates a relationship imbalance and resentment.

• Emotional Volatility: This pattern usually involves quick, intense romantic involvement followed by instability or drama instead of deep sustainable love.

• Exploitation: Charismatic individuals with Dark Triad personality traits can easily exploit their partner's quick emotional investment for their own selfish gains. Individuals with Dark Triad traits often start relationships by love bombing their partner--not because they are so interested in their partner but because they want their partner to fall for them quickly so they can manipulate them.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Beth

After the breakup of her fourth relationship, Beth sought help in therapy at the suggestion of her close friends. They told her that they saw recurring negative patterns in the men she chose (see my article: Do Your Friends See Red Flags in Your Partner That You Don't See?).

Falling In Love Too Hard and Too Fast

Beth wasn't sure she agreed with her friends, but she knew she needed help to understand why each time she got into a relationship, she thought she met her soulmate, but after a while her partner lies, cheats and leaves her for another women (see my article: Why Looking For a Soulmate Will Disappoint You).

She told her therapist that her last partner, Bill, pursued her relentlessly after they met at a party.  The day after they met, Bill sent her a beautiful bouquet of roses with an invitation to go to an exclusive restaurant.

From the moment she met Bill, Beth thought he was very handsome and charismatic. On their first date Bill told her that he couldn't stop thinking about her.

Beth felt like she was a princess in a fairy tale by their second date. In her imagination, she could see herself walking down the aisle to marry Bill. She pictured their beautiful home with two children.

Her close friends warned her that she was allowing herself to fall in love with love rather than taking the time to get to know Bill. They also warned her that Bill was love bombing her, but Beth ignored them because she liked the feeling of being swept off her feet.

On their fourth date, when Bill told her that the lease on his Manhattan apartment was about to expire, Beth saw this as a sign they were meant to be together and she told him he could move in with her.

Their first week of living together was like a dream come true for Beth. She was sure Bill loved her, so one night when she made a special dinner for them, she told Bill that she loved him.  Bill kissed her on the cheek, but Beth was disappointed he didn't tell her that he loved her too.

A few weeks later, Bill told her he was having dinner with a friend and she shouldn't wait up for him. When Beth asked him who he was having dinner with, Bill seemed annoyed and just repeated he would be home late.

When Beth woke up in the middle of the night and she realized Bill wasn't home yet, she became worried. She texted his phone, but her message wasn't delivered. Then she tried calling him, but her call went straight to voicemail.

When he walked in at 3 AM, Bill was startled to find Beth sitting on the couch waiting for him, "What are you doing, Beth? Why aren't you asleep?"

When she responded that she was worried because she couldn't reach him, Bill snapped at her. He said he didn't like her checking up on him and he refused to tell her who he was with and what he was doing.

After they had a big argument the next morning, Bill packed some pf his things and said he would be staying with a friend for a few days. Once again, he refused to give Beth any information.

When Beth called her friend Jane in a state of tears, Jane was quiet for a few seconds. Then, reluctantly, she told Beth she saw Bill kissing another woman at an outdoor restaurant.  Jane felt devastated.

During the next two weeks Beth felt like she was on an emotional roller coaster. When she tried to talk to Bill about the other woman, he refused to talk to her. He slept on Beth's couch, left early in the morning before she woke up and came back after she was asleep.

Then, one day Bill didn't come home at all. When Beth got home from work, she discovered that  all of his belongings were gone. He ignored her calls and texts for days. Then one day he sent her a short text that he was through with her and he told her not to contact him again.

Beth told her therapist that her prior relationships began and ended in similar ways and she couldn't understand why she had such "bad luck" in her relationships (see my article: Unhealthy Relationship: Bad Luck or Poor Choices?).

Her therapist provided Beth with psychoeducation about emophilia and helped Beth to see the connection between her relationship choices and her family history in a volatile family home with a depressed mother and narcissistic father who had extramarital affairs.

Her therapist talked to Beth about trauma therapy to work through her traumatic family history which she was unconsciously repeating in her relationships.

Beth worked through her traumatic history in trauma therapy with a combination of EMDR therapy and IFS Parts Work Therapy (see my article: Combining EMDR and IFS Therapies).

The work was neither quick nor easy but, over time, Beth could feel she was freeing herself from her family history (see my article: Progress in Therapy Isn't Linear).

She was no longer attracted to men who had Dark Triad traits and when she met someone with these traits, rather than being charmed by him, she ended her contact with him quickly.

She also took her time to get to know men she liked before she made a commitment to be in a relationship.

Conclusion

Emophilia isn't a psychiatric diagnosis. It's a personality trait characterized by a powerful drive to experience the thrill of falling in love without assessing a potential partner. 

These individuals tend to attract partners with Dark Triad traits because they fall in love with love and they are easy to manipulate by these type of partners.

Get Help in Therapy

If you recognize that you tend to fall in love too hard and too fast, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in this area.

Get Help in Therapy

A psychotherapist who has an expertise in trauma therapy can help you to become aware of your relationship patterns and overcome the underlying issues driving these unconscious patterns, 

Once you have worked through these issues, you can make better relationship choices and live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist, I have over 25 years of experiencing 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 Trauma: You Are Not Defined By What Happened to You

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, coined the phrase, "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."

What Does It Mean That You Are Not What Happened to You?

Carl Jung's phrase means that while past experiences have shaped you, your true self isn't defined by them (see my article: You Are Not Defined By Your Diagnosis).

You Are Not Your Trauma

Instead, your true self is defined by the choices you make, your responses, and your ongoing process of self creation. The emphasis is your personal agency in choosing who you are, what you want to be and how you respond.

This way of looking at your history, including unresolved trauma, highlights that, with help and the right tools, you have the ability to transcend your history to overcome trauma and proactively build a future identity.

Jung was positing that none of us are a finished product based on our history. On the contrary, we have an innate ability to heal and grow beyond our history and circumstances (see my article: Healing From Unresolved Trauma: The Mind Has a Powerful Innate Ability to Heal Itself).

What Are the Keys to Transcending Your History?

• Personal Agency: You have the power to decide who you are regardless of your history, although you might need help in therapy to do it.

You Are Not Your Trauma

• Transformation: Difficult events aren't final destinations. With help, they can be opportunities to grow (see my article: Riding the Waves of Transformation).

• Identity as Evolving: You identity is a evolving process--not a static state.

Healing From Psychological Trauma

Choosing to get help in trauma therapy is a courageous act--not a sign of weakness (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma).

Your mind has an innate ability to heal due to the mind's neuroplasticity.

You Are Not Your Trauma

Neuroplasticity is the mind's ability to reorganize its structure and function by developing new neural connections which allows you to adapt and recover.

Neuroplasticity underpins your ability to grow as an individual, overcome challenges and maintain cognitive health by strengthening beneficial pathways and pruning weaker ones.

What is Trauma Therapy?

Trauma therapy is an umbrella term for psychotherapy modalities which were developed specifically to help clients overcome trauma including:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy)

You Are Not Your Trauma

• Somatic Experiencing
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

Get Help in Trauma Therapy

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

Get Help in Trauma Therapy

Seek help from a licensed trauma therapist so you can free yourself from your traumatic history and live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to heal from trauma.

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

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

Healing From Unresolved Trauma: The Mind Has a Powerful Innate Ability to Heal Itself

One of the basic concepts of trauma therapy is that the mind has a powerful innate ability to heal (see my article: How Can Trauma Therapy Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma?).

The Mind's Innate Ability to Heal in Trauma Therapy

What is the Mind's Powerful Innate Ability to Heal?

• Neuroplasticity: Neuroplasticity is the primary reason why the mind has an innate ability to heal itself. With regard to trauma therapy, neuroplasticity is the mind's ability to reorganize, adapt and create new neural pathways to learn new things and recover from trauma.

• Self Regulation: The mind and the body work together to promote wellness (see my articles: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

The Mind's Innate Ability to Heal in Trauma Therapy

• Trauma Therapy Processing: When the mind is unable to integrate overwhelming experiences, trauma therapies like EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy) help the mind to complete trauma processing to restore balance.

• Memory Reconsolidation: Trauma therapy uses memory reconsolidation to change how traumatic memories are stored. This often occurs over a period of time. Memory reconsolidation in trauma therapy works by:

• Activation and Retrieval: When a client brings up a traumatic memory in trauma therapy, the memory opens up for change. 

• Update: After the memory is activated again, the trauma therapist introduces new non-threatening information or experiences either through visualization or new coping resources.

• Reconsolidation: The memory is then stored again in its new less threatening reconsolidated form which, essentially, de-traumatizes the memory.

How Can You Tap Into Your Mind's Innate Ability to Heal?

Along with trauma therapy, you can tap into your mind's natural ability to heal between therapy sessions by:

• Meditating

• Journaling

The Mind's Innate Ability to Heal in Trauma Therapy

• Practicing gratitude

• Cognitive reframing

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, get help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained as a trauma therapist.

The Mind's Innate Ability to Heal in Trauma Therapy

Unburdening yourself from unresolved trauma can free you from your history so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I have over 25 years of experience as a trauma therapist helping 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.

How is Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) a Psychodynamic Therapy?

In my prior article,  How is Contemporary Psychodynamic Therapy Different From Traditional Psychoanalysis?, I discussed the difference between contemporary (modern) psychodynamic therapy and traditional (Freudian) psychoanalysis.

AEDP as a Psychodynamic Therapy

In the current article, I'm discussing how Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) is a type of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

What is AEDP?

AEDP was developed by clinician and researcher, Dr. Diana Fosha.

See my two prior articles:

What is AEDP and How Does It Heal Trauma

How Does AEDP Heal?

How is AEDP a Psychodynamic Therapy?

AEDP is a psychodynamic therapy because it stems from psychodynamic principles.

The psychodynamic roots of AEDP include concepts such as:

• The Past Influences the Present: AEDP recognizes that the past influences the present. This is a fundamental concept in all forms of psychodynamic therapy (see my article: Why is Past Unresolved Trauma Affecting You Now?).

AEDP as a Psychodynamic Therapy

• Exploration of Defenses: AEDP delves into how we use defense mechanisms (ways to avoid emotional and psychological pain) which were developed as a strategy to cope with overwhelming pain. This is a core concept of psychodynamic therapy.

• Relational Focus: AEDP emphasizes the relationship between the client and the therapist as crucial to the client's healing. This is an essential part of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

How is AEDP Different From Psychodynamic Therapy?

• Experiential and Focused on Emotion: Instead of only analyzing the past, AEDP focuses on the here-and-now to fully focus on emotions as they arise in the therapy using these moments as a catalyst for change (see my article: Riding the Waves of Transformation).

AEDP as a Psychodynamic Therapy

• Accelerated Healing: The "Accelerated" part of AEDP refers to harnessing the client's powerful emotional experiences, including emotions like joy and grief, to facilitate accelerated healing (as compared to most psychodynamic therapies) rather than a slow exploration of the client's dynamics (see my article: How Does AEDP Work?).

• The Client's Innate Resilience: AEDP assumes that people are hardwired for resilience. AEDP focuses on and amplifies what is already working for the client. This helps to build the client's existing strengths which promotes the client's flourishing. This is a significant difference from many forms of psychodynamic therapy which focus on the pathology (pathology in this context refers to mental and behavioral patterns that are dysfunctional).

Conclusion

AEDP uses psychodynamic principles, but it deepens and tends to speed up the process by getting clients to feel and transform emotions experientially within a secure, attachment-based therapeutic relationship. This helps clients to unlock their innate capacity for healing (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Therapy to Resolve Trauma).

Get Help in AEDP Therapy

If you have been struggling on your own to cope with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with an AEDP therapist.

To find an AEDP therapist near you, you can search on the AEDP directory.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained in AEDP.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist with more than 25 years of experience, I have helped many individual adults and couples to heal from trauma (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You Overcome Unresolved Trauma).

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

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

 

How Your Early Unmet Emotional Needs Might Be Affecting Your Relationship

Many adults who grew up with emotional neglect or abuse are unaware that they're expecting their partner to fulfill those needs (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

Unmet Childhood Needs and Adult Relationships

They're unaware of it because these expectations are often unconscious and, therefore, outside of their awareness.

What Can You Reasonably Expect From Your Partner?

So let's look at what's reasonable to expect from a partner.

Your partner can fulfill many emotional needs including:

• Being trustworthy
• Fostering emotional safety
• Being supportive, loving and empathetic
• Being attuned and validating
• Showing appreciation

However, your partner can't make up for early unmet emotional needs from your childhood because those needs stem from early attachment wounds. 

Why Your Partner Can't Make Up For Your Unmet Childhood Needs

Here are some of the reasons why your partner can't make up for your early unmet emotional needs:

• Unmet Childhood Needs Stem From Early Attachment Trauma: Early abuse, emotional neglect or inconsistent care creates early attachment wounds. These conditions can also create insecure attachment and a need for constant reassurance or, conversely, an avoidance of emotional intimacy.

• A Child-Parent Dynamic in Your Adult Relationship: Without realizing it, adults who were emotionally neglected and/or abused can create a child-parent dynamic in their relationship where they expect their partner to provide them with the good parenting they didn't get as a child. This can create emotional and sexual problems in the relationship.

Unmet Childhood Needs and Adult Relationships

• Communication Problems: Many people whose emotional needs weren't met in childhood also learned as children not to ask for what they needed. This inability to ask for what they needed carries over into adulthood. It's not unusual for adults, who didn't get what they needed in childhood, to have childlike expectations that their partner will know what they need without telling their partner. This creates confusion, communication problems and resentment (see my article: Are You Expecting Your Partner to Be a Mind Reader?).

• Confusing Love and Codependency: When adults didn't get what they needed as children, they can confuse love and codependency rather than creating a relationship with healthy interdependency (see my article: What is the Difference Between Codependency and Interdependency?).

How to Cope With Unmet Childhood Needs as an Adult

• Recognize Your Misplaced Expectations: Accept that your partner can't provide you with the nurturance you didn't get as a child and that your partner can never make up for what you didn't get. What you didn't get is a loss and needs to be grieved so you can heal.

Unmet Childhood Needs and Adult Relationships

• Learn to Communicate Clearly: Be aware that if you have an unconscious expectation that your partner should know what you want before you ask, you are acting from a very young part of yourself. This is unrealistic and it's your responsibility to learn to communicate what you want in a clear, tactful way (see my article: Improving Communication in Your Relationship By Avoiding the "4 Horsement of the Apocalypse").

Unmet Childhood Needs and Adult Relationships

• Focus on Healing Yourself: Recognize and accept that your partner isn't your parent and that you need to focus on healing yourself or get help in trauma therapy so you can heal (see below).

• Get Help in Trauma Therapy: A licensed mental health professional who is trained as a trauma therapist can help you to heal from the unresolved trauma, including early unmet emotional needs. There are different types of trauma therapy:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Parts Work Therapy: IFS (Internal Family Systems and Ego States Therapy)

• AEDP  (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing
  

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you're struggling with unresolved trauma, you're not alone.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Rather than struggling alone, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in helping clients overcome trauma so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist, I have over 25 years of experience helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

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

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

 

 

How Can Unresolved Trauma Affect Your Ability to Know Whether You Feel Emotionally Safe?

In my prior article, Recognizing When You're Safe or Unsafe in Your Interpersonal Relationships, I discussed basic issues about feeling emotionally safe based on your nervous system (Polyvagal Theory), personal history and other relevant factors.

In the current article I'm discussing how trauma can affect your ability to know whether you feel emotionally safe.

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

Unresolved trauma can have a profound effect on your mind and body. It can also impair your ability to know whether you're safe or not.

What is Psychological Trauma?

Before I discuss the impact of trauma, let's first define trauma.

You can experience trauma emotionally, psychologically and physically due to a distressing event (or events) that overwhelm your ability to cope.

The event can be a single incident like a natural disaster, a robbery, an assault or other types of one-time events (see my article: What is Shock Trauma?).

Trauma can also be ongoing events such as recurrent abuse in a relationship. It can also be related to repeated traumatic events in childhood trauma, also known as developmental trauma.

You can also be impacted by the chronic stress related to trauma on a physical level including:

• Sleep problems
• Chronic pain
• Hypervigilance
• Cardiovascular issues
• Weakened immune system
• Digestive problems
• Inflammatory disorders such as Type 2 diabetes, asthma, arthritis and so on

How Can Unresolved Trauma Affect Your Ability to Know Whether You Feel Safe?

Unresolved trauma can affect your ability to sense safety by keeping you in a constant state of high alert (also known as hypervigilance). This can make it difficult to interpret safe situations from dangerous situations.

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

Unresolved trauma can also create dissociation where you feel emotionally and psychologically numb. 

Dissociation might have been an effective survival strategy if you were overwhelmed by distressing events when you were a child because it kept you from being completely overwhelmed. However, as an adult, dissociation can have a negative impact on your ability to trust your own judgment or trust other people.

Being either hypervigilant or emotionally numb (dissociated) can impair your ability to know if certain situations are safe or unsafe.

In general, you might have problems connecting with others and forming healthy relationships because you might interpret safe situations as unsafe and unsafe situations as safe.

You might have extreme emotional reactions to relatively small stressors, not react to big stressors or you might have difficulty finding a middle ground.

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

Unresolved trauma can also impair your ability to deal with conflict. Whereas most people don't like conflict, you might not be able to avoid certain conflicts in your relationships. 

So, if you can't deal with conflict, you might resort to people pleasing (also known as fawning) to avoid conflict and keep the peace--even if it comes at the expense of your  psychological, emotional or physical well-being.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette is a composite of many different cases to protect confidentiality:

Anna

As an only child, Anna grew up in a family where she experienced emotional abuse, neglect and sexual abuse by her father.  

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

The sexual abuse began when she was 10 years old. At the time, her mother was in and out of the hospital due to serious chronic health problems. 

During those long stretches of time when her mother was away, her father, who had alcohol problems, would get drunk and come into her room late at night when Anna was sleeping. She would awaken suddenly to discover her father fondling her breasts.  

Not knowing how to respond, Anna froze and her father told her that if she told anyone else that he touched her, she would take her away by Child Welfare and they would make live with strangers in a foster care home.

Anna was frightened and confused by her father's inappropriate touching, but she was even more afraid of being forced to live with strangers, so she didn't tell anyone what was happening at home.

Her teacher noticed that Anna was withdrawn and she spoke to Anna after class to ask her if there was a problem at home. In response, Anna denied any problems at home because she was afraid. After that, Anna's teacher called her home and Anna's father told the teacher that Anna was feeling sad due to the mother's hospitalization.

The father continued to sexually abuse Anna for several months whenever he got drunk. After the first experience, Anna was hypervigilant at night, especially when she heard her father's footsteps approaching her room.  After a while, Anna pretended to be asleep and she numbed herself while her father was touching her. 

After Anna's maternal aunt came to stay with Anna and her father, her father no longer visited her at night.  

As a child, Anna never told anyone about the sexual abuse because she was too afraid. But when she began dating in college, she didn't know how to discern safe situations from unsafe situations.

Her lack of discernment created problems for her because she would sometimes put herself at potential risk by going into the cars of young men she didn't know because she thought she could trust them. In one incident, she was almost sexually assaulted, but her friends, who were nearby, heard Anna yelling and they rushed over to get her out of the car.

In another situation, she was too afraid to accept an invitation to go for a walk with another young man, John, because she didn't know whether or not she could trust him.  Later on, she spoke with her friends, who knew John well, and they told they didn't think she needed to worry.

Over time, Anna continued to see John and she realized she could trust him. Getting to the point where she could trust him wasn't easy. But after they got into a relationship and they talked about being sexual, Anna felt an overwhelming fear of sex. 

Initially, she didn't understand what her fear was about, but she knew she needed help, so she sought out a licensed mental health professional.

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

After her therapist did a thorough family history, Anna revealed the childhood sexual abuse. It was the first time she had ever told anyone.

Her therapist helped Anna to understand the connection between the sexual abuse and her inability to discern whether she was safe or not in interpersonal relationships. She also helped her to understand the connection between her fear of sex and the abuse.

Using a combination of EMDR therapy and IFS Parts Work therapy, her therapist helped Anna to work through her unresolved trauma.

EMDR and IFS are both safe and effective types of trauma therapy which were developed to help clients to work through unresolved trauma.

Unresolved Trauma and Emotional Safety

The work was neither quick nor easy but, gradually, over time Anna began to feel unburdened by her trauma. She also learned in her trauma therapy how to detect internal and external cues to discern safe situations from possibly unsafe situations.

Over time, Anna and John were able to have pleasurable sex as she worked through her trauma. 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Unresolved trauma can impair your ability to know whether you're safe. It can also have a negative impact on your interpersonal relationships.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Trauma therapy, including EMDR, Parts Work therapy, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and other types of trauma therapy can help you to work through unresolved trauma in a safe and effective way.

If you feel unresolved trauma has had a negative impact in your life, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has advanced trauma therapy training and skills.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adult 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.