Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Psychotherapist

When Freud first encountered the erotic transference among his patients, he was very concerned and he didn't think it was a useful part of treatment. But, as he continued to work with these patients and to explore the transference, he discovered that it was, in fact, a very useful part of psychoanalysis, and the transference could be worked through so that the patient could gain insight and grow in treatment.

Psychotherapists who are psychoanalysts have rigorous psychoanalytic training as well as years of their own psychoanalysis so that they are trained to work with the transferential aspects of therapy, including the erotic transference.

Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference

But, first let's understand what we mean by the word "transference" in the context of psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy.

What is Transference?
There are many explanations for transference but, basically, transference entails, primarily, unconscious feelings that clients develop for their psychotherapists where they usually "transfer" feelings related to their childhood. Transference can be positive, negative, idealized, erotic and so on.

Usually, the clients develop these transferential feelings based on unmet needs from their childhood, so that if their parents were cold and neglectful, they have a strong desire for the psychotherapist to fulfill these needs that weren't met by their parents.

When you consider that psychoanalytic clients meet with their psychoanalysts any where from 2-5 times per week, you can see how transference, in whatever form, would build up quickly. Psychoanalysts also usually delve into the most intimate aspects of a client's interior world, including dreams, which can also fuel transferential feelings.

Also, most psychoanalysts, especially at the beginning of treatment, don't reveal that much about themselves because transference is an important part of treatment. Since they want to work with the transference, they are unlikely to reveal a lot of personal information because the more a client knows about his or her therapist, the less room there is for transference to develop. So, the combination of the frequency of sessions, the intimate nature of what the client is sharing in the treatment, and the lack of information about the analyst (where there's lots of room for clients to project their fantasies) can create powerful transferential feelings.

Sometimes, clients' transferential feelings are not totally unconscious. They might be very aware of feelings that they're developing for the therapist, although they might not realize that the basis of these feelings is based on childhood experiences. This is all very common and part of what would be discussed in treatment.

Transference is not a phenomenon that is only found in treatment. In fact, it is a normal part of every day life in many areas of our lives. I'm sure that many of us can think of teachers that we had crushes on in school. This is also usually transference because it's a projection of the student's feelings for the teacher. Usually, students outgrow these crushes and, eventually, develop healthy relationships with their own peers.

What is Countertransference
I've chosen to focus on a particular type of transference in this blog article, namely, erotic transference, but I wanted to add a few words about countertransference. Countertransference is also a form of transference but, in the context of treatment, it's the transferential feelings that the therapist has for the client. Therapists who are psychoanalytically trained know that they will feel countertransference for some clients, and they often experience the same type of transferential feelings as clients do.

The big difference is that therapists who are psychoanalytically trained have the therapeutic skills to deal with these countertransferential feelings, and will usually recognize that it's not really about the client.

Rather, it can point to something that is lacking in their own lives, something from the past, or some unconscious feelings regarding their own unmet needs. Early on, in psychoanalytic training, psychoanalytic candidates in training use their own personal psychoanalysis and supervision to deal with these feelings and learn how to handle them without compromising the treatment. If countertransference becomes an issue for a therapist after his or her training, usually, he or she will seek professional guidance either in his or her personal therapy, in supervision, or among peers.

When psychoanalysts act on transferential and/or countertransferential feelings, rather than seeing them as a signal for work to be done with the client and/or with themselves, there can be boundary violations, especially sexual boundary violations, which I discussed in an earlier blog post. This type of boundary violation, whether it occurs during the treatment or after the treatment, is usually most harmful to the client. It can leave a client feeling devastated since these types of "relationships," which continue to be unequal even if the treatment is over, almost never work out.

There are some psychotherapists, who are not psychoanalytically trained, who are uncomfortable with clients' transference or their own countertransference, and they avoid dealing with it and don't know how to deal with it. This is usually detrimental to the treatment and has been the cause of many treatment failures.

What is the Erotic Transference?
The erotic transference is a particular form of transference that occurs when the client thinks that he or she has fallen in love with the therapist. Once again, as mentioned previously, feelings can develop quickly in psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy due to the intensity of the treatment.

Initially, this can be emotionally painful for clients because, an ethical psychotherapist who maintains the treatment frame, won't gratify these erotic transferential feelings and fantasies, so that clients feel a yearning for their therapists that cannot be satisfied. These feelings are explored in treatment and, usually, as previously mentioned, they have their origins in unmet childhood needs.

It's easy to see how someone who grew up in a home where their emotional needs were not met or not sufficiently met, for whatever reason, would feel like he or she is falling in love with the therapist who is spending so much time listening to his or her most innermost feelings. The early yearning to have these needs met can come roaring to the surface very quickly. Many times, clients have repressed (pushed down) these needs for so long that. before starting treatment, they might not even be aware that they still have these needs. Then, lo and behold, these needs are tapped into and they often erupt with full force.

Note that I emphasized that this can be part of the initial part of treatment. The reason for this is that a skilled psychoanalytically trained therapist will use these transferential feelings not only to explore those unmet needs but also to help the client to develop healthy relationships outside of treatment where those needs can be met. So, although it can be initially painful to feel unrequited love as part of the erotic transference, the client is helped to develop into an adult who can have his or her needs met.

The erotic transference can occur regardless of the client's and therapist's gender or sexual orientation. That means that a heterosexual woman can develop an erotic transference for a heterosexual female therapist, even if this client never had erotic or romantic feelings for women in the past.

It can also occur with a heterosexual man and a gay therapist, even if the client never had sexual or romantic feelings for gay men before. A gay male client can develop an erotic transference for a heterosexual female therapist. And so on. This can be very confusing for clients and, at times, causes them to question their sexual orientation. But, most often, especially if they're not having these romantic and sexual feelings outside of treatment, it's not about a change in their sexual orientation. It's usually about unmet childhood needs and, as an adult, these needs can be transformed into romantic and/or sexual feelings for the therapist.

In a successful psychoanalytic or psychodynamic treatment, the client matures into a person who can work through these early unmet needs and find mature love among his or her own peers rather than continuing to fantasize about the therapist.

But it would be misleading to say that this happens quickly in every psychoanalytic of psychodynamic treatment or that, for some people, it happens at all. Some clients can spend years feeling that they're in love with their therapists and not understanding why the therapist is not willing to satisfy their needs by seeing them outside of the therapy sessions or going out with them or telling them about personal aspects of the therapist's life.

If a therapist is not able to help a client work through the transference so that the client can transfer his or her feelings from the therapist to a healthy, mature relationship with a peer, the therapist might have to refer the client to a different therapist to work out these issues. This can feel very rejecting to the client, who might not understand why this is necessary, but it is sometimes necessary and preferable to allowing a client to spend year after year feeling deprived because his or her therapist won't gratify his erotic or romantic needs.

The fictionalized vignette below demonstrates how the erotic transference can develop in a psychoanalytic treatment. As an aside, I also want to reiterate that, although I'm focusing on psychoanalytic and psychodynamic treatment, transference can develop in any type of therapy and, overall, transference out in the world (outside of the treatment setting) is ubiquitous.

Terry:
When Terry began treatment, she had just ended her third long-term relationship with a man who turned out to be cold and distant. She felt depressed and "a failure" because she continued to choose men who didn't meet her emotional needs.

Terry chose a woman psychotherapist who was recommended to her by her doctor. During the initial few visits, the therapist asked Terry about her childhood history, and Terry recounted a childhood where her parents provided her with everything that she needed and wanted materially, but they were emotionally distant. Whenever she wanted to talk to her parents, they were too preoccupied with other things to listen to her. As an only child, Terry grew up feeling lonely. She loved to go visit her best friend's home because her friend's mother was very warm and affectionate. Terry used to secretly wish that her friend's mother would become her mother.

Since Terry was significantly depressed (although not suicidal), Terry and her therapist agreed to meet three times a week. As the treatment went on, Terry described how she had never felt that anyone close to her ever really listened to her. She was tired of going out with men who turned out to be so much like her parents, and she couldn't understand the unconscious process that compelled her to continue to choose the same type of man over and over again.

After a few weeks, Terry really began to look forward to her therapy sessions. Her therapist provided a safe and nonjudgmental environment for Terry to express her innermost feelings. Terry told her therapist about thoughts and feelings that she had never revealed to anyone else in her life, and she was amazed at how easily she was able to do this with her therapist. Most of all, she felt that her therapist was caring, attentive and really listened to her in a way that she had never been listened to before.

Soon after that, Terry began having erotic dreams about her therapist. These dreams made her feel very frightened, confused, and embarrassed because she considered herself to be heterosexual, and she had never had romantic or erotic feelings for a woman before. She had gay and lesbian friends, and she didn't think she was prejudice against gays. She was just bewildered by these dreams and wished that she would stop having them.

Terry also began to notice that she was ruminating about her therapist between sessions, wondering what she was doing and with whom. She fantasized about meeting her therapist outside of their sessions for dinner and getting to know her therapist personally. When her fantasies turned erotic, she began to worry because now she was having erotic feelings for her therapist in her dreams as well as her waking hours. In fact, she worried because she was feeling obsessed.

At that point, whenever she went to therapy, she wished that the session wouldn't end. She looked at her therapist's ring finger to see if she was wearing a wedding ring, but she saw no signs of whether her therapist was married or had a significant other. She felt that, at least, if she knew that her therapist was married, maybe she could stop ruminating about her day and night.

When her therapy session ended and Terry walked out into the waiting room and saw the next client about to go in to see the therapist, she felt jealous. On an emotional level, she wanted the therapist to only spend time with her and it was painful to think that she had to share her with other clients. On a rational level, Terry could step back and look at her feelings and know that they were irrational, but she couldn't stop them.

She had fantasies about standing across the street from her therapist's office, somewhere where the therapist couldn't see her, and waiting to see where she went or if she met up with a husband or lover. She felt that her curiosity and yearning to know more about her therapist's life was overwhelming. And, although she often had this fantasy, she never gave into it because she didn't want to feel like a stalker.

Finally, one day when Terry couldn't tolerate having these erotic feelings for her therapist any more, with much hesitation and embarrassment, she told her therapist about her erotic feelings. Part of her hoped that her therapist would tell her that she felt the same way about her, which she also knew would be terrifying for her. Another part of her was afraid that her therapist would think this was highly inappropriate and she would need treatment with Terry.

Terry's therapist listened intently to what Terry had to say. Terry became tearful because she was confused about what this meant about their therapeutic relationship and also what it meant in terms of Terry's sexual orientation. Terry poured out all the feelings that she had been holding back and allowed her tears to flow.

After she finished, Terry raised her eyes for the first time during that session to meet her therapist's eyes. What she saw was the same empathetic and compassionate look that her therapist usually had. She breathed a sigh of relief that, at least, her therapist wasn't throwing her out of the office. Then, her therapist talked to Terry about transference and, in particular, the erotic transference. Terry was surprised to hear that this is a very common experience in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy. At least, she knew that she was not some odd ball and that many other clients in therapy experienced the same feelings. Most importantly. she learned that most clients work through these feelings as they learn to develop healthy, romantic relationships outside of treatment.

Terry and her therapist continued to explore these feelings as they related to her unmet childhood needs. Terry did a lot of grieving for what she didn't get when she was growing up. Over time, she also learned to accept that her parents, who would never even think of getting into their own therapy, probably would not change. This is often a very hard part of treatment for many clients who still hold onto the wish, no matter how impossible it might seem, that one day their parents would change.

In the meantime, Terry began to date again. Whenever she started to see a man who turned out to be cold and distant as all the other men she dated, she wished that she could be in a romantic relationship with her therapist. Sometimes, these feelings were so strong that she felt they were unbearable. Although she still really didn't know if her therapist was heterosexual or a lesbian and she didn't know if her therapist was in a relationship, she fantasized about her therapist being a single lesbian.

Although she understood that she and her therapist couldn't be romantically or sexually involved while she was still in treatment, she now had fantasies that they could be together after the treatment ended. She even had thoughts about terminating the treatment with her therapist and seeing a different therapist so that she and her current therapist could be together.

This thought made her feel happy and excited her sexually as well. She no longer cared if she considered herself to be heterosexual or a lesbian. It didn't matter. All she could think about at that point was that she and her therapist could be so happy together if she was no longer in treatment with her. She thought to herself, "Why didn't I think about this before? Surely, my therapist must recognize that there's a special feeling between us. She's too ethical to pursue this feeling while I'm in treatment with her, but she'd have no reason not to be with me if I was in treatment with someone else."

Terry was very excited on the day when she decided to bring this up in her psychotherapy session. She had fantasies about having romantic candlelight dinners with her therapist, being sexually intimate, and, in time, even living together. So, when she brought up her feelings about this in therapy, as always, her therapist listened to her intently. Terry was so happy to have someone finally listen to her as if she was the only person in the world, and she imagined how wonderful this would be to experience all the time, and not for 45 minutes several times a week.

Once again, Terry's therapist acknowledged that it is not at all unusual for a client to have these feelings and, in fact, many clients had these feelings. Then, she proceeded to explain to Terry how, even after their treatment ended, whenever it ended, they could never be together or have anything but a therapeutic relationship because it would ruin the treatment that they had together. Also, she explained that these romantic and sexual feelings that Terry had, while very strong, were still based on her unmet childhood needs. And a relationship between a former therapist and a former client would be disastrous for the client.

Even though her therapist normalized her feelings, Terry was extremely disappointed. She thought she had found a way to be with her therapist, only to be rejected. This was the subject of many sessions after that session. Terry's therapist was also able to help her connect her current feelings to her earlier feelings connected to the childhood emotional neglect.

As treatment continued, Terry began to feel deep down that she deserved to be with someone who was emotionally available to her. Since she didn't have attractions for women outside of her therapy sessions, she continued to date men and talk about these experiences in her therapy. She still held onto a wish that her therapist would eventually change her mind and get romantically involved with Terry after the treatment was over. But she also began to choose men who were more emotionally attuned to her.

Several months later, Terry met a man that she really liked and who was very kind and generous with her. Unlike her other relationships, he was attentive and also reciprocated her feelings. Initially, she was almost too afraid to get excited about this man because she feared that she would get disappointed and hurt like she had in the past. But, as she continued to see him, their relationship developed and became more intimate.

At first, Terry felt like she was "cheating" on her therapist, although, rationally, she knew this wasn't true. But, until then, most of her erotic dreams and fantasies had been about her therapist, and it had been the most intense relationship (albeit it a therapeutic relationship) that she had ever had.

Unlike her mother, who had almost never shown much concern for Terry's emotional well being, Terry sensed that her therapist was happy for her that she had met someone that she really cared about and who really cared about her.

As Terry continued to see this man and continued to talk about it in her therapy, gradually, over time, she realized that her feelings for her therapist were changing. Although she felt a deep caring for her therapist, she no longer had romantic or sexual feelings for her therapist.

This surprised Terry greatly because, when she was obsessing about her therapist, she thought these feelings would never change and she worried about what it might be like to terminate treatment and never see her therapist again. Whenever she had those feelings, she worried that she had become "too dependent" on her therapist. But much to her surprise, over time, she was beginning to feel that she could foresee a time when she could end treatment and be all right about it.

When she discussed this with her therapist, her therapist assured her that, even after she ended this treatment, if she felt that she wanted to work out other issues that had come up after this treatment was over, she could return to see her. She also told Terry that it wasn't unusual for people to return to their therapists after years of being away from treatment. She also told her that Terry had the option in the future of seeing a different therapist, possible someone who worked differently, to get a different perspective.

Soon after that, Terry and her therapist went through the termination process, which lasted a few months. During that time, they saw each other less frequently. They processed the therapy in a way that gave closure to their therapeutic relationship. During that time, Terry realized that her feelings for her therapist had changed to no longer feeling at all erotic, romantic or idealized in any way. Rather, she saw her therapist as being an ordinary person who happened to be very skilled at her work. And, when she looked back at her erotic transferential feelings, she was glad that her therapist was ethical, and maintained the therapeutic frame in a safe and empathic environment.

Terry and her boyfriend eventually got married and, overall, she was happy. After a few years, she returned to see her former therapist for brief treatment to work through particular issues. She was grateful to be able to return for treatment whenever she needed it. And rather than feeling caught up in transferential feelings that were based on unmet childhood needs, she felt that she was with a capable mental health professional who could help her to overcome these problems.

About the Fictionalized Scenario 
The fictionalized scenario that I presented above is one example, among many different types of situations, of the erotic transference and how it might appear in treatment and get worked through. There are times when clients, who feel too uncomfortable with their erotic and romantic feelings for their therapist, leave treatment and never work through these issues or the unmet childhood needs that tend to fuel these feelings.

While there are certainly times, especially if a psychotherapist is crossing professional boundaries, where clients should leave treatment before transferential feelings are worked through (and work them through with another more professional and ethical therapist), most of the time, it is beneficial to stay in treatment and get to the early core issues that are at the heart of the matter.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're overwhelmed with problems that you've been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who can help you to work through these issues so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

Frequently Asked Questions About Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy

Is it normal to feel like I am falling in love with my therapist?
Yes, developing romantic or sexual feelings for your psychotherapist—known as erotic transference—is a very common and valuable dynamic in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. In my Greenwich Village private practice, I provide a secure space to safely explore these powerful feelings, which often stem from deep-seated, unmet childhood needs and projections held within the unconscious mind. Rather than a barrier, a skilled psychodynamic therapist views this dynamic as an essential catalyst for deeper self-awareness, allowing us to reprocess the original vulnerability so you can form healthy, fulfilling adult relationships outside of the clinical setting.

How does a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist handle intense client transference without breaking clinical boundaries?
A psychotherapist who has undergone rigorous psychoanalytic training and extensive personal analysis is uniquely equipped to navigate both client transference and their own internal countertransference responses. Instead of avoiding these intense emotional experiences or allowing a defensive cascade to compromise the treatment frame, I utilize these clinical dynamics as professional guideposts to help you gain profound insight. In my Manhattan office, maintaining absolute ethical boundaries and a consistent therapeutic frame is what transforms what initially feels like a cycle of worry or unrequited yearning into an authentic path toward emotional resolution and clinical growth.

About Me
I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York City, who is psychoanalytically trained.

Since my psychoanalytic training, I have also developed expertise in other treatment modalities, including EMDR, clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, AEDP, EFT and Sex Therapy.  

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.

I offer a free 15 minute call before setting up an initial appointment.

I see clients in person in my Greenwich Village, New York City (10011) office and online throughout NYS.

You can reach me at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours or send me an email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

Pretending to Feel "Strong" to Avoid Feeling Your Unmet Emotional Needs

People who grew up in families where their emotional needs weren't met often feel they must "be strong" in order to deny their emotional needs to themselves and to others.  This denial of their emotional needs was part of their emotional survival strategy as children and they continue to use this strategy in their adult relationships--even though it's no longer helping them (see my articles: Understanding Your Emotional Needs, What is the Connection Between Unmet Childhood Emotional Needs and Problems Later on in Adult Relationships?, What is Childhood Emotional Neglect? and Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work: "I Don't Need Anyone").

Pretending to Be "Strong"

Whether they received an explicit message when they were children to "be strong" or whether it was an unspoken understanding in the family, as adults, these individuals often feel ashamed of their emotional needs--shame that developed when they were children.

Denying their unmet emotional needs as children was a way of compartmentalizing those needs so that they didn't feel overwhelmed that there wasn't someone to comfort them.  In that way, the defense mechanisms of denial and compartmentalization helped them.  But, as an adult in a relationship, denying emotional needs gets in the way of having a healthy relationship.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: "Being Strong" to Avoid Feeling Unmet Emotional Needs
Jan
Growing up in a home where her parents were usually preoccupied with their own relationship and careers, Jan learned at a young age to deny her emotional needs.

Instead of her parents accommodating Jan's emotional needs, Jan learned to accommodate her parents by never asking them to comfort her or listen to her when she was scared or feeling doubtful.  She learned that she had to "be strong" on her own, and she became a pseudo "independent" child who appeared, externally, to be emotionally self reliant.

Her parents expressed their pride in having a child like Jan who never asked for anything from them and who was seemingly able to take care of her own emotional needs.

But behind this exterior of pseudo independence, Jan was a frightened, sad child who felt ashamed of having emotional needs.  At a very young age, whenever she felt the need for love or comfort, she told herself that she was  "being a baby."  In effect, she internalized her parents' attitude towards her and she shamed herself.

Years later, when she entered into her first serious relationship, she continued to deny to herself and to her boyfriend that she had any emotional needs that he needed to attend to, but she was willing to pay attention to his emotional needs.

Her boyfriend, who was an warming, affectionate, caring person, knew that Jan had lived her entire life denying her emotional needs because of her relationship with her parents, and he found it difficult to be the nurturing person that he really was in his relationship with Jan.  So, he talked to her about getting help in therapy.

Initially, Jan was offended by her boyfriend's suggestion that she get help in therapy.  She thought he was implying that she was a "weak" person (see my article: Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Going to Therapy Means You're "Weak").

As far as she was concerned, there was nothing wrong with her, and she couldn't understand why he would recommend therapy.  But she wanted to be open minded, so she made an appointment to see a psychotherapist.

During the initial psychotherapy consultation, Jan apologized for taking up the therapist's time when there was really "nothing wrong" with her.  She told the therapist that her boyfriend thought it would be a good idea for her to come to therapy, and she wanted to keep an open mind about it.

As Jan talked about her family history, she was so emotionally detached from the details about her relationship with her parents.  It was as if she was giving a news report.  It was only when the psychotherapist asked Jan to slow down that Jan heard herself and she began to feel sad and anxious about what she was saying.

After a while during the initial psychotherapy consultation, Jan told the therapist that when she slowed down and reflected on her relationship with her parents, she felt uncomfortable.  She thought about the children that she knew now that were the same age as Jan was when she was a child, and she realized that her family life "wasn't normal" (her words) because, of course, it's normal for children have emotional needs.

Over time, Jan's psychotherapist helped Jan to put words to her emotions by using Somatic Experiencing.  When Jan had difficulty identifying her emotions, her therapist asked her to sense what she felt in her body in order to put words to her emotions (see my article: Using Somatic Psychotherapy When the Client Has No Words to Express the Problem).

Initially, this was difficult and frightening for Jan because she spent her life, until now, denying her emotions.  But her therapist titrated the work so that it wasn't overwhelming for Jan.

Once Jan was able to express her emotions and accept that her emotional needs were "normal," she and her therapist used EMDR therapy to help her to resolve the trauma related to her early emotional neglect (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

This work was neither quick nor easy but, over time, Jan grieved for what she needed and didn't get as a child.

As she worked on resolving her childhood trauma, she became more emotionally engaged in her relationship with her boyfriend.  She was able to accept love and nurturance from her boyfriend, who was happy that Jan was growing emotionally and more present in their relationship.

Conclusion
Emotional survival strategies that were helpful during childhood often get in the way of adult relationships.

Someone who spent their childhood denying his or her emotional needs often doesn't recognize, as an adult, that this is what they are doing.  Often, their spouse or romantic partner is the one to point out that there is a problem.

Trauma therapy, like Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy, helps to overcome unresolved trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
Trying to overcome these type of traumatic problems on your own is very difficult (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome emotional survival strategies that are no longer working for you so you can replace them with healthy ways of relating and coping (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Admitting to yourself that you have a problem and contacting a trauma therapist is often the hardest part of trying to overcome trauma.

The first step is having a consultation to explore these issues further and to see if you feel comfortable enough with the therapist to continue to work with her.

Once you're free of your traumatic history, you can lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

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

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome traumatic experiences.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work: "I don't need anyone"

Unresolved early childhood trauma usually leads to emotional survival strategies that were adaptive during childhood, but they are no longer adaptive for adults.  They also often lead to distortions in self perception.  It's not unusual for adults, who were abused or neglected as children, to become adults who deny their own emotional needs and reject emotional connections with others (see my articles: Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma That Occurred a Long Time Ago, Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated, Are You Feeling Trapped By Your Childhood History?, Overcoming the Traumatic Effects of Childhood Trauma, and Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From an Adult Perspective).

Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work: "I don't need anyone."

These survival strategies and distortions in self perception are unconscious.  Underneath them are a lot of fear, hurt, anger and shame.

One way to avoid feeling these underlying feelings is intellectualization.  When it is used to avoid unconscious emotions, intellectualization is a defense strategy.  More about this later.

These problems can begin early in infancy when the baby's primary caregiver is either shutdown emotionally, continuously misattuned to the baby's emotional needs, emotionally neglectful or abusive.

Even if all of the baby's physical needs are being taken care of, the baby still needs emotional attunement from the primary caregiver in order to thrive and learn to develop healthy attachment.

A baby, who makes many attempts to get a caregiver to be emotionally attuned, eventually gives up and shuts down emotionally.  Not only does the baby feel resignation about getting his emotional needs met, but he also gives up and dissociates.

If this is a pervasive experience in a baby's life, it will affect brain development as well as emotional development.

This survival strategy of dissociating is adaptive at that point for the baby because it would be emotionally unbearable to continue to yearn for love and attention that won't be given by the primary caregiver.

But this survival strategy, as an adult, is maladaptive and usually results in disconnection from oneself and others.

The dilemma for this adult is that he (or she) yearns for love and connection, but he's too fearful of getting his needs met, so he either (unconsciously) connects with other adults who cannot meet his needs or he believes himself to be "independent," someone who doesn't need other people.

As mentioned before, a common pattern for people with this problem is to either avoid relationships altogether by intellectualizing ("I only need my books") to negate the yearning for love and connection.

Fictionalized Scenario
The following fictionalized scenario illustrates these dynamics:

Jane
Shortly after Jane was born, she was left with her maternal grandmother when her mother moved from Florida to New York to find work.

Jane's grandmother did the best that she could, but she was often overwhelmed by taking care of her other grandchildren, her responsibilities in the house and running the family business.  As a result, she had little time to spend with Jane aside from meeting Jane's basic physical needs.

The grandmother was raised to believe that if a baby cried, the baby should be left to cry it out rather than being picked up, otherwise, the baby would be spoiled.

How Emotional Survival Strategies Develop in Infancy

So she left Jane crying for long periods of time in the crib.  Eventually, Jane would give up out of sheer physical exhaustion as well as a primitive sense that it was hopeless to keep trying to get anyone's attention.

When Jane's grandmother noticed that Jane was quiet in her crib and was just staring into space, she thought this was good.

To be clear, the grandmother wasn't trying to harm Jane in any way.  She just didn't understand the developmental harm that was being done by not responding to the baby's crying.  And, aside from this, a quiet baby is a compliant baby and was much easier for the grandmother.

When Jane was 10, her mother sent for her to live in New York City.  Even though Jane and her mother had no contact since the mother moved to New York City, when Jane arrived, her mother expected Jane to be affectionate towards her.

But, instead of an affectionate child, Jane's mother encountered a child who showed little emotional reaction to her.  Jane was obedient and passive, but it was obvious that she felt no emotional connection to her mother.

Jane understood that the woman she was meeting after so many years was her mother--she understood it as a fact.  But it had no emotional resonance for her.  She complied with her mother's rules and directives, but Jane remained emotionally disconnected from her (see my article: Adults Who Were Traumatized as Children Are Often Afraid to Feel Their Emotions).

Jane's mother thought of Jane's emotional distance as Jane being willfully disrespectful of her.  She had no understanding, as many parents wouldn't, that Jane's aloofness was an unconscious survival strategy that she developed at an early age to cope with the lack of love and connection from infancy.

Meanwhile when she was at school, Jane's teachers noticed that she tended to isolate herself from other children.  While other children were playing during recess, Jane sat in the corner by herself reading a book.

When Jane's teacher told her mother that she was concerned that Jane wasn't interacting with the other children, Jane's mother dismissed the teacher's concerns, "My daughter is here to learn.  She's not here to make friends.  It's better for her to read than to play."

Throughout high school, Jane's mother discouraged her from dating, "There will be plenty of time for that after you graduate from college."   Jane didn't mind because she felt no need to date boys or to make friends, "I have my books.  I don't need anyone."

During her first year of college, Jane kept to herself. At first, her classmates tried to befriend her, but when they saw that Jane wasn't receptive, they thought that Jane thought of herself as being "too good" for them.  Their friendliness turned to scorn, and they laughed and ridiculed Jane.

Although Jane pretended not to notice, she saw and heard their criticism.  Sometimes it would bother her, but most of the time, she pushed down her discomfort and told herself that she didn't care what they thought, "I don't need anyone."  Then, she would study harder in an effort to avoid feeling her loneliness, anger and hurt.

Jane graduated college with a 4.0 GPA, which she was very proud of and so was her mother.  But she didn't get any interviews from the college recruiters at campus.

Jane applied for many jobs after she graduated college, but she received no responses.  She wasn't  aware that many companies looked not only for good grades--they also wanted to see that students were involved in college activities, and Jane avoided any activities while she was in college.

Eventually, Jane found a job as a part time bookkeeper, which didn't require a college degree.  She worked in a small office by herself.

After a year, Jane found a full time bookkeeping job.  This allowed her to move out of her mother's home to become a roommate in an apartment with three other young women.

Jane didn't really want to have roommates, but she couldn't afford to have her own apartment.  Even though Jane had no interest in making friends with her roommates, one of them, Cathy, went out of her way to be friendly with Jane.

To her surprise, Jane realized that she didn't mind being around Cathy because Cathy did all the talking when they were together and all Jane had to do was be polite and pretend to be interested in what Cathy was saying.

After Cathy asked Jane many times, Jane agreed to go with Cathy to a silent meditation retreat.  Jane thought, "How bad could it be?  All I have to do is be silent."

But when Jane began the silent meditation at the meditation center, she was surprised to discover that she felt upset and emotionally overwhelmed, and she didn't know why.  She asked the center director if she could read books instead, but she was told that she had to focus on meditation.

After a couple of days of silent meditation with no other distractions, Jane felt so emotionally overwhelmed with sadness that it was unbearable.  She felt ashamed to leave early, but she couldn't bear being so overwhelmed.

When she got home, Jane tried to distract herself from her sadness by immersing herself in her books and going online but, no matter what she did, she still felt engulfed by sadness and she didn't know why she was feeling this way and why she couldn't distract herself.

After experiencing overwhelming sadness for a couple of weeks, Jane knew she needed help, but she wasn't sure where to turn, so she sought help from her medical doctor.

Although she felt very ashamed of her feelings, especially since she couldn't think of any reason for her sadness, her fear that she was "going crazy" got her to talk to her doctor.

Jane's doctor explained to her that there was nothing physically wrong with her and that she needed to address these psychological issues in psychotherapy.  Then, he referred her to a psychotherapist.

Getting Help in Therapy For Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work 

Over time, Jane learned in therapy that, as an infant, she developed an emotional survival strategy of disconnecting from her environment as a way to deal with the environment that she grew up in.  Her therapist explained to her that this is called dissociation and it's what babies do when they are being raised by a caregiver who neglects or abuses them.

Jane learned from her therapist that this early emotional survival strategy was adaptive at the time because to continue to yearn for love and attention when none was forthcoming would have been even more emotionally painful when she was an infant.

Her therapist explained that Jane continued to use this emotional survival strategy as an adult.  Jane used books and other intellectual pursuits to distract herself and dissociate from her environment, but it was no longer adaptive in Jane's life--in fact, it was getting in the way of developing healthy friendships and relationships.

When Jane went to the silent meditation retreat, her psychotherapist explained, and she wasn't allowed to distract herself with books, her sadness about years of emotional neglect and disconnection came bubbling up to the surface, and this was what Jane was experiencing now.

The feelings were so strong that Jane could no longer push them down so, rather than trying to suppress them, Jane needed to engage in trauma therapy in order to heal.

She could no longer remain in denial about not needing anyone, which was a defense against feeling her longstanding sadness.  Jane saw this defense mechanism for what it was--an emotional survival strategy and distortion in self perception that was now maladaptive.

The psychotherapist talked to Jane about EMDR therapy. She also took a thorough family history and helped Jane to prepare to do EMDR (see my articles: Overcoming Trauma With EMDR Therapy: When the Past is in the Present and EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough).

The work was neither quick nor easy (see my article: Psychotherapy: Beyond the Bandaid Approach).

But by the time Jane and her therapist began processing her early trauma, Jane trusted her therapist and, eventually, she was able to free herself from her history to lead a fuller life.

Conclusion
When infants are neglected or abused, they're able to develop survival strategies, on an unconscious level, that are adaptive at the time to ward off the devastating emotions that are the result of neglect and abuse.

Although it was adaptive at the time, these emotional survival strategies are no longer adaptive as an older child, teen or an adult.  These strategies keep people cut off from their feelings and in denial about their emotional pain.  It also keeps them cut off from other people.

Although they might believe that they really don't need anyone, this emotional survival strategy and distortion in self perception takes a lot of energy to maintain.

People often distract themselves from difficult underlying emotions with intellectual pursuits, drinking excessively, abusing drugs, gambling compulsively or engaging in other addictive and compulsive behavior.

When someone can no longer distract himself, these underlying emotions often come to the surface in a powerful way so that these emotions can no longer be denied.

Getting Help in Therapy
Various forms of trauma therapy, like EMDR therapy, clinical hypnosis or Somatic Experiencing are effective in helping people to overcome emotional trauma.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself get the help you need from a skilled psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma.

By freeing yourself from a traumatic history, you can lead a more fulfilling life.

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

I specialize in helping clients to overcome emotional 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.

Working in Therapy to Accept Your Emotional Needs

Many people feel ashamed of their emotional needs because they grew up in families where they were made to feel ashamed for even having emotional needs (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?)  One of the goals in therapy for many clients is to learn to recognize and accept their emotional needs (see my article: Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Feelings).

Working in Therapy to Accept Your Emotional Needs 

Having emotional needs is a natural part of being human.  But for people who learned to feel ashamed of their needs, having emotional needs is perceived as a weakness.

Many people, who were traumatized as children, are no longer even aware of their emotional needs because they have become numb to them.

What is Emotional Numbing?
Emotional numbing is a defense against the intolerable shame and pain of having unmet emotional needs, especially emotional needs that stem from unmet childhood needs.

Emotional numbing not only cuts off feelings related to emotional needs, it also cuts off feelings of love, happiness and joy.  People who are especially cut off from their feelings have little awareness of their feelings and often have a hard time discerning other people's feelings.

Fictionalized Scenario:

Let's take a look at a fictionalized vignette to understand this phenomenon and how therapy can help.

Cora
Cora came to therapy because she was aware that she felt no joy in life.  In fact, she felt very little of anything.  Life just seemed flat to her.

Working in Therapy to Accept Your Emotional Needs

It didn't matter that she had good friends, she was successful and well liked at work or that there were always men who were interested in her.  She took no pleasure in any of this.

She grew up in a home where she was taught to always put other people's needs before her own.  Her father, who was a minister, spent most of his time involved with church activities.  Her mother was involved in the same church activities, and Cora was expected to spend most of her spare time helping out in the church.

As far back as she could remember, her parents discouraged her from thinking about herself.  Whenever Cora wanted a doll or a toy, her parents scolded her for being selfish and not thinking about the many children around the world who didn't even have food to eat.

They told her, "How could you think of something so silly as having a doll when so many children are suffering?  Don't be so selfish."

As a child, whenever Cora wanted something for herself, she felt so guilty that she kept it to herself.  Even when she felt lonely and wished her parents would spend more time with her, she felt she was being selfish.

She felt that her parents' work in the church was more important than she was, and she shouldn't complain.  After a while, she learned not to feel these needs at all.

Throughout high school and college, Cora volunteered for many projects to help those who were less fortunate.  Although she won prizes for her work, she felt no joy in it.  All she felt was lonely.

Cora learned to look and act the part in her career, which brought her financial success, but she felt no inner satisfaction in her work and no sense of accomplishment.  She felt she was just continuing to do what she was supposed to do, just as she had when she was a child.  All the while, Cora felt she was an impostor (see my article: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome).

Cora learned to pretend to be happy.  It was a facade that she put on because she thought that that's what she was supposed to do, but she didn't feel it (see my article: How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't).

Then, Cora began dating John.  She was aware that he really liked her and she knew he was a good person but, beyond that, she was unsure what she felt. This made her uneasy.  Even sex felt flat to her and she pretended to enjoy it more than she did, so she felt like a phony.  This brought her into therapy.

Working in Therapy to Accept Your Emotional Needs

When her therapist spoke to Cora about the importance of self care, Cora was unclear what this meant.  She knew about eating healthy food and getting exercise, but she didn't know what self care meant beyond that.

Even though Cora could well afford to get a massage or do other similar things to take care of herself, she told her therapist that she would feel guilty doing these things because she was aware that there were so many people in the world who didn't have their basic needs met, so how could she pamper herself?  This felt selfish to her (see my article: Is Self Care Selfish?).

Her therapist helped Cora to begin to identify her emotions by getting Cora to develop a felt sense in her body and where she felt these emotions in her body (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window into the Unconscious Mind).

So, for instance, Cora came to realize that when she felt angry, she felt tense in her hands and in her shoulders.  And when she felt anxious, she felt tense in her stomach.

Cora also realized in therapy that she felt it was perfectly okay for others to do things that made them feel good, like getting a massage or indulging in other types of self care.  So, she began to question why she felt that it was selfish for her.

Gradually, over time, Cora saw that she had learned from a young age to numb her feelings so that she was no longer aware of what she felt.

Her therapist helped Cora to see that this was a protective defense mechanism that she developed as a child because it would have been too painful to continue to feel her unmet emotional needs, but that it was no longer useful for her.  In fact, this defense was now getting in the way.

As she mourned for what she didn't get as a child, she developed a greater capacity to feel her emotions without feeling guilty for having emotional needs.

Over time, Cora opened up to experiencing her genuine feelings.  She was no longer pretending to feel happy--she actually felt joy and happiness.

Working in Therapy to Accept Your Emotional Needs

In her relationship, she opened up to the emotional intimacy of the relationship. She realized that she was falling in love with this man, and she felt pleasure that she had never felt before when they had sex.

Overall, Cora felt that she was coming alive in a way that she never knew was possible.

Conclusion
Emotional numbing often occurs at an early age as a defense against unmet childhood emotional needs.

What starts out a protective defense mechanism against intolerable feelings becomes a major obstacle later on in life.

Emotional numbing tends to numb all feelings--not just the ones that are difficult.  It often affects all relationships and can make life feel flat.

Psychotherapy with a psychotherapist who is trained to assist clients to overcome emotional numbing can make the difference between going through life feeling little or nothing and leading a vibrant and fulfilling life.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you are aware that you have difficulty either feeling your emotions or allowing yourself to feel good, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed mental health professional who specializes in helping clients to identify and accept their emotional needs.

Rather than going through life feeling numb, you can learn to acknowledge and accept your emotional needs and live a fuller and happier life.

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

I have helped many clients to overcome trauma and emotional numbing so that they could feel alive and happier in their lives.

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

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

In a prior article, Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?, I began addressing the importance of having your emotional needs met within your romantic relationship or marriage.  But there are many people who don't understand what their emotional needs are, so I'm addressing this issue in this article.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Without being able to identify and understand your emotional, you can't really ask for what you need in your relationship.

Many people who had unmet emotional needs as children grow up to be adults who don't understand what their emotional needs are and how to even find out what they are.

Many of these same people go on to have romantic relationships with people who are, at best, ambivalent and, at worst, abusive, including emotional and/or physical abuse.

In contrast to people, who grew up where their emotional needs weren't taken care of, people who grew up in households where the love and nurturing was "good enough," usually have an intuitive sense of what they need from their romantic partner.  If their partner mistreats them either emotionally or physically, they are much less likely to put up with it than people who grew up with unmet emotional needs.

It's important for you and your partner that you understand what you need emotionally.

Let's start by identifying some of the most common emotional needs that people have.  This list will give you an idea, but it's, by no means, exhaustive, and you might identify other emotional needs that are important to you.

Common Emotional Needs

• to be seen for who you are
• to be heard
• to be understood
• to be encouraged, supported and nurtured
• to feel loved
• to receive affection
• to have emotional intimacy with significant others (family, friends, partners/spouses)
• to be allowed to grow and develop as a person
• to be forgiven
• to be touched and held

Once again, there are just some of the most basic needs that most people have, but there can be others.  For instance, someone who needs time to him or herself might have a need for a certain amount of solitude.  Or, there could be other important emotional needs, depending upon the individual.

Discovering and Understanding Your Emotional Needs
So, if you haven't had the experience of having your emotional needs met (or, maybe you not even aware that your emotional needs weren't met when you were a child) how can you go about discovering what these needs are?

As a psychotherapist, one way that I find to be very effective is to begin paying attention to what's going on in your body.

Your body contains both conscious and unconscious emotions and memories, so that focusing on what's going on in your body can begin to help you to understand your emotions as well as your emotional needs (see my article: Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Depending upon how in touch you are with your embodied emotions, this can be challenging, especially if you are dissociated (i.e., cut off) from what's happening in your body due to emotional trauma.

For many people, who grew up in households where they were physically abused or emotionally neglected, as children, it would have been either dangerous or too emotionally painful to be in touch with their emotional needs.

In such situations, children often defend themselves against the emotional pain by suppressing their needs.  This is a common defense mechanism.  This defense mechanism protected them in a way from feeling the emotional pain.  It protected them from feeling too vulnerable.

The problem is that these same children often grow up to be adults who are out of touch with their emotions and don't know what they need emotionally.  Even worse, they often enter into romantic relationships that replicate their childhood experiences.

Let's take a look at a fictional scenario to understand this:

Dina
Dina came to therapy because she was confused about her two year relationship with John.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Her close friends had been Dina all along that John wasn't treating her well after they moved in together.  Although she trusted her friends and she knew that they wanted the best for her, Dina didn't see it and she wondered if she was missing something.

When she provided her family history, she talked about growing up as an only child and being raised primarily by nannies.  Her parents were often preoccupied with their careers and too busy to spend much time with her.

As a result, before going to school, Dina spent a lot time playing on her own.  She remembered having a young nanny who was kind and attentive for a short while, but her parents fired the nanny after they discovered that she was allowing her boyfriend to come over to spend the night when Dina's parents were away traveling.

Dina remembered waking up one day to find that the nanny that she loved wasn't there.  She was given no explanation until much later when she was an adult.  This was a big loss for Dina that she suppressed and never discussed until she came to therapy.

The new nanny that they hired was somewhat quiet and reserved.  As a result, Dina often felt sad and lonely, and she sometimes went to her parents to try to get their attention.  During those times, her parents scolded her for being "needy," which made her feel ashamed.  Later on, when she was old enough, she was sent to a boarding school far from her home.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Shy and sad, Dina had difficulty making friends at boarding school.  There were a couple of students who were more outgoing who befriended Dina, but being at boarding school and hardly seeing her parents was a sad and lonely experience.

By the time she went to college, Dina gave the impression of being "independent."  But it was really a pseudo independence that was a defense against being emotionally vulnerable.

Intelligent and attractive, she attracted the attention of many male students in college, but she dated very little and spent most of her time with a few outgoing friends who initiated friendships with her.

Dina met John in her senior year of college.  Shy and unsure of herself, she initially kept John at arm's length.  But he was persistent and found ways to be around her during college activities.

After John asked Dina out many times, she agreed to go out with him.  Initially, she found him to be very attentive.  Not only was he good looking and intelligent, he was also very funny and made Dina laugh, so she began opening up to him more.

Dina had never experienced anything like this before, and she became captivated by him.  He was her first and only lover, and their love making was very passionate.

After they graduated from college, they found jobs in NYC and moved in together.  By then, they had been together for a year.  At first, looking for an apartment and making plans was fun.

But shortly after they moved in together, Dina realized that John seemed to change.  Whereas before he was very attentive to her, he now seemed to be preoccupied with other things--his job, his male friends, hobbies, and other activities where Dina was not included.

At first, Dina thought that John was adjusting to post college life, but a year later, he was still the same. Whenever she tried to talk to him about it, John became uncomfortable and dismissed what she had to say.

Then, a few months before she came to therapy, Dina discovered an email on John's account from another woman and she realized that when John said he was seeing his friends, he was actually seeing this other woman.

When she confronted John about it, at first, he denied it.  But she showed him the email, he blamed her.  He told her that she had become boring and it was her fault that he looked outside the relationship.  He told her that, as of now, it wasn't serious, but he wanted to continue to see this other woman to see whether it would develop.

At first, Dina took John's words to heart and she blamed herself for his infidelity.  She thought:  Maybe he's right.  Maybe I am boring.  What can I do to change?

When she talked to her close friends about it, they told her that John was making excuses, not taking responsibility, and blaming her for his own behavior.  They told her that John was mistreating her, but Dina didn't see it.  She believed that if she could be more interesting, attentive, and sexy, she could lure John back.  But no matter what she tried to do, he continued to see the other woman and spend most of his free time with her.  He wasn't even coming home at night any more.

When Dina started therapy, she wasn't sure what she felt about John seeing another woman.  She knew she wanted him to be monogamous with her, but beyond that and blaming herself, she wasn't in touch with any other emotions.

By helping Dina to become more aware of what was going on in her body, Dina began to slowly develop more of an awareness of her internal experience.

For instance, she began to recognize that when she felt her stomach muscles clinched, she was either anxious or angry and that when she felt a sinking feeling in her chest, she felt sad.

Over time, Dina began to realize how much she had suppressed her emotions as a child as a way to protect herself from feeling overwhelmingly sad and angry with her parents.  She developed compassion for that younger part of herself that was often left to fend for herself, and she appreciated why she had to suppress her feelings as a child.

But she also realized that she was much more resilient as an adult and she could now handle the emotions that would have been too overwhelming as a child.

Part of the work in therapy involved grief work for her unmet emotional needs as a child.

The work was neither quick nor easy, but eventually Dina was able to feel her anger and disappointment and recognized that John was mistreating her.  She also realized that she needed to feel loved, valued and treated with respected and her needs weren't being met in her relationship with John.  So, she summoned her courage and broke up with him.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Several months later, Dina began dating again.  She used her new awareness of her embodied emotions to understand what she needed emotionally in a relationship and she used this awareness to eventually enter into a much healthier relationship.

Conclusion
When children grow up with unmet emotional needs, they often protect themselves emotionally by suppressing those needs.

As adults, they often continue to suppress those emotional needs so that they're unaware of what they need emotionally.

This lack of awareness has consequences for the individual on his or her own and for being able to choose healthy relationships.

When clients are unaware of their emotional needs, one effective way of working in therapy is for the therapist to orient the client to what's happening in his or her body with regard to embodied emotions.

Getting Help in Therapy
Using the mind-body connection to identify your emotional needs is an effective method.

If the issues in this article resonate with you, rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from being in therapy with a psychotherapist who has a mind-body orientation to doing 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.