Are You Feeling Lost?

Feeling lost on an emotional level is a common experience for many adults.  Many people go through periods in their lives when they feel lost and alone, and it can be almost as frightening as the experience of being lost as a child.  This is especially true if these adults experienced feelings of being alone, lonely or abandoned as children.

Are You Feeling Lost?

Whether the experience of feeling lost is the result of the death of a loved one, the loss of a friend, a betrayal, a job loss, or some other emotionally challenging experience, you can feel like you've fallen into an abyss.

Supportive Family and Friends Might Not Know How to Help You
If you're fortunate enough to have supportive family and friends, you might not feel as alone.  Emotional support can help you to weather this time.  But, if you're going through an especially bad time, your family and friends might not know how to help you to overcome your feeling of being lost.

Are You Feeling Lost Emotionally?

Some people, unintentionally, make it worse by telling you to "get over it" or to "buck up."  Although they might be well meaning, this can make you feel worse because you're unable to just "get over it," even though you would very much like to do it.

Feeling Lost: Friends and Family Might Be Well-Intentioned, But They Might Not Be Helpful

If you've gone through similar experiences in the past and you overcame those experiences, it might help you in dealing with your current feelings.  You might even be able to look back on those earlier experiences and realize that, although they were very challenging, you learned important lessons in life.

The Challenging of Feeling Lost 

But, depending upon what you're going through now, knowing that you'll eventually learn important lessons can be cold comfort when you're feeling lost.

Getting Professional Help in Therapy
At that point, rather than suffering on your own, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping therapy clients through lost periods in their lives.   

Getting help from a licensed therapist can make the difference between prolonged emotional suffering and making an emotional transition.

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 web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

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

Who Are You Carrying Around Inside Your Head?

I'm currently reading The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer.  He writes about his explorations of the life and works of the English writer, Graham Greene.  Iyer talks about feeling like he's carrying Greene in his head and how this affects him.  The Man Within My Head is a poignant look at Iyer's self exploration as he ponders whether the man he feels he carries in his head is Greene or if it is actually his own father.

Who Are You Carrying Around in Your Head?

The Experience of Carrying Someone in Your Head:  Dreams, Coincidence, Synchronicities
As I've been reading this book, it brought to mind how often all of us, at various times, carry around certain people in our heads--whether it's a cherished departed relative, friend, mentor, teacher, former therapist, author or other people who have affected us on a deep level.

My own experience has been that when I am immersed in a memoir or biography of someone that I especially admire, I often have vivid dreams about that person.

I also have the sense, as Pico Iyer describes, of carrying this person around in my head.  Then, aside from my dreams, I have wonderful experiences where I'll happen upon this person's name or some other significant factor about them in my daily activities.

Coincidence or synchronicity?  Who knows.  But it adds to the intensity of the immersion experience.

Seeing Through the Eyes of the Person in Your Head
It's not unusual for people to want to see through the eyes of someone who is important to them or who has affected them deeply.  I've heard therapy clients as well as people in my personal life also describe similar experiences.

Sometimes, therapy clients who have been seeing me for a while tell me that when they're in a particularly challenging situation, they try to think of what I might say to them.  This is a common experience for clients in therapy.  It helps them in that moment and gives them a sense of objectivity.  It also helps them to feel they're not alone with in whatever dilemma they're going through.

In the meantime, I recommend The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer, who writes about his own experience in an eloquent and moving way.

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.

Grief In Waiting After the Death of a Parent

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see many adult clients who have unresolved grief from childhood.  Many of these therapy clients were young children when they lost one or both parents.

Grief in Waiting After the Death of a Parent

The death of a loved one is difficult no matter how old you are.  But this kind of loss often has a way of going emotionally underground, so to speak, especially if the child doesn't have nurturing adults to help him or her to grieve.

Let's take a look at the scenario below, which illustrates how grief in waiting can develop.  As always, this is a composite with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Tom
Tom grew up as an only child.  His parents separated when Tom was seven after years of arguing and chaos in the household.

Tom's parents didn't tell him that his father was moving out. But when he saw his father packing up his things one day, Tom got upset.  His father told him that he was only going away for a few days and he would be back soon.  But days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months with no sign of his father.

Tom worried silently to himself.  He also felt very lonely.  At night, he would pray that, wherever his father was, he would come home.  Then, he would cry himself to sleep.

When Tom gathered his courage to ask his mother about his father, his mother brushed him off and told him to go out and play.

Tom could see that he had annoyed his mother, and he was fearful that if annoyed her any more, she might leave him too.  So, he kept his feelings and questions to himself.  As many children do, he blamed himself for his father leaving.

He thought he must have said or done something to make his father leave.  He would go over his last memories of his father, trying to think of what he might have done to anger his father.  But he couldn't come up with anything.

There were times when his aunt was over and Tom overheard his mother's conversation with her sister about his father.  Tom would sit at the top of the stairs and be as quiet as he could be so he could hear their conversation without their realizing that he was listening.

From the bits and pieces that he heard, Tom found out that his father moved out of state and he was living with another woman.  He also heard his mother say how much she hated his father and how he was "no good."

One day, Tom heard that his father and the other woman had a child.  Tom thought, sadly, now that his father had another child, his father probably forgot all about him.

This made Tom feel sad.  Having no one to talk to about his feelings, he kept them to himself.

When Tom was nine, his mother called him into the living room to talk to him.  His aunt was there too. Tom could tell as soon as he entered into the room that something was wrong.  Both his mother and aunt looked tense.

As Tom sat down on the edge of the couch across from his mother and aunt waiting anxiously, his mother told him in a matter of fact tone that his father had died the night before.  She said she received a call that morning, and she thought that Tom would want to know.  She told him that she felt he was too young to attend his father's funeral.  Then, she told Tom to go to his room.

Even at his young age, Tom knew from the stern look on his mother's face that she didn't want to talk about it further so he walked slowly back to his room and threw himself on his bed.  He took out a picture he had of his father that he hid in his top drawer and stared at it for a long time.  Then, feeling exhausted, he fell asleep and dreamt about his father.

From that day on, Tom lived his life on two levels.  One level was his everyday reality as life went on just as before his father died.  On another level, there was a part of him that believed that his father might still be alive somewhere.

Tom thought that, somehow, whoever called his mother to tell her that his father died must have made a mistake.  They were probably confusing his father with someone else.

Over the next several years, Tom continued to have dreams that his father was alive.  There were dreams where his father even told him that he was alive and well and would come to see him soon.  Whenever Tom woke up from one of these dreams, which seemed so real, he was even more convinced that his father was still alive.

By the time Tom was in his early 30s, he no longer had these dreams about his father.  He had matured and he had a better understanding, as compared to when he was a child, of the finality of death.  He tried to push any thoughts about his father out of his mind because they were too painful.

What he didn't realize is that, even though he tried not to think about his father, there was still a split in his consciousness about his father.

When he did have thoughts about his father on his father's birthday or the anniversary of his death, Tom would have the strange feeling that his father was never real--even though he knew this wasn't true.  His feelings and memories of his father took on a dreamlike, unreal quality.  These feelings frightened Tom because they were so strange, and he didn't understand them.

When he felt this way, Tom felt like he wanted to cry, but he couldn't.  He felt the weight of his grief in his chest, but no tears came, even when he tried to cry.  This made Tom feel deeply ashamed because after he heard that his father died, when he was a child, he never cried.  He thought to himself:  What kind of son am I that I never even shed a tear about my father's death?

Tom still didn't have anyone to talk to about his feelings because he tended to isolate.  He had a few friends from college, but he never confided in them.  He felt he didn't want to be a burden to them.  He dated a few women, but he stopped seeing each of them as soon as things seemed like they were starting to get serious.  The thought of being in a relationship frightened him.

Even though Tom continued to be very lonely as an adult, he was too fearful to allow people to get too close to him.

It wasn't until his mother died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack that Tom came to therapy.  Even though his mother was cold and distant, Tom loved her and called her every few days.  When he got the call from the hospital, he rushed over, but his mother was already dead.

Tom felt the weight of his sadness for his mother's death, but he couldn't cry.  At first, he thought that he was in shock.  But as the weeks passed and he was unable to cry, he realized that he needed help.

As Tom and I began to work together and talk about the loss of each of his parents, it was clear that Tom's grief was frozen in a state of waiting.  He had been so traumatized by the loss and subsequent death of his father, without anyone to help him.

For the first time in his life, Tom spoke about his fear, sadness and shock.  He would feel the emotions welling up in him, but he still couldn't cry.

Talking about his feelings was helpful, but it wasn't enough to help Tom to feel safe enough to experience his feelings of grief.

I provided Tom with information about early childhood trauma, and how many children experience the split in their consciousness that he experienced.  This dissociation is one of the signs of trauma.

Then, we used the mind-body therapy called Somatic Experiencing, a gentle approach that helps to heal trauma.

Over time, Tom brought in pictures of each of his parents and objects that belonged to each parent that had special meaning to him, and we talked about his memories.

At first, Tom was afraid that if he allowed himself to feel the full extent of his grief that it would be like falling into a bottomless pit.  So, we had to work together to help Tom to feel safe.

Having lost my father suddenly at a young age and experiencing grief in waiting myself, I had a sense of what Tom was going through.  Through my own therapy as an adult, I was able to integrate my the experience  so that I could finally mourn and heal from this major loss.

Gradually, Tom began to feel safe enough to allow himself to be vulnerable and to cry.

Tom mourned his father and, at the same time, he also internalized a greater sense of his father through his memories of his father.

With this internalization process, Tom began to feel more integrated emotionally.  He felt that a great burden had been lifted from him.  He sought out relatives and friends who knew his father to find out more about his father and to understand why his father left.

He talked to his aunt, whose feelings towards Tom's father had mellowed over the years.  From her, Tom learned that, even though Tom's parents didn't get along, his father was a good provider.  He also learned that his father tried to see him many times, but Tom's mother prevented it.  Tom's aunt was able to provide Tom with a fuller picture of his father.

At that point, Tom had to deal not only with the loss of each of his parents, but also his anger towards his father for not standing up to his mother and his mother preventing his father from having a relationship with him.   But he was still relieved to have a fuller picture of what happened.

The trauma work was slow, but Tom was motivated and came to his sessions regularly.  As we continued to work together and Tom grieved, he felt less emotionally vulnerable and he could think about the possibility of allowing himself to have a serious relationship.

Grief in Waiting Isn't an Unusual Experience
Many people, without even realizing it, are experiencing grief in waiting.  They can spend many years, even a lifetime in this state.

Many people say they experience a sense of unreality about their loss, especially if they had no one to help them through the loss.

Somatic Experiencing, Trauma and Grief
As I mentioned before, Somatic Experiencing is a form of trauma therapy which is gentle and effective.  This mind-body approach to therapy isn't just an intellectual process, as so many forms of psychotherapy are.

Somatic Experiencing therapists, who are licensed psychotherapists, can help clients to develop the necessary emotional resources to work on the trauma.  Using Somatic Experiencing, SE therapists also help clients to reconnect with the lost parts of themselves using the mind-body connection.

Getting Help in Therapy
If the composite scenario about Tom resonates with you, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist who uses Somatic Experiencing to help clients overcome trauma.

Rather than spending a lifetime emotionally frozen in trauma, you could work through your grief so 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.

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

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

Getting to the Core of Your Problems With Experiential Therapy

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

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

Getting to the Core of Your Problems With Experiential Therapy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coping with the Empty Nest Syndrome

Many parents are facing what is typically called the Empty Nest syndrome during this time of year when the last of their children go away to college. With some forethought and planning, the sadness that is usually associated with the empty nest syndrome can be avoided or, at least, minimized.

Coping With the Empty Nest Syndrome

What is the Empty Nest Syndrome?
Typically, the empty nest syndrome occurs when the last of the parents' children leave the household, whether it is to attend college or to go out and live on their own.

This transition can be especially difficult if parents have been almost exclusively focused on their children to the detriment of their relationship with each other.

Suddenly, after 18 or 20 years of focusing on their children, they are faced with questions and, possibly, doubts about what to do with their lives and how to interact with one another now that it's only the two of them in the household.

Not everyone goes through the empty nest syndrome. For many people who have maintained good relationships with their spouses, their own friends, and outside interests, when their children leave, they see it as a time when they can have more freedom and independence.

They might decide to spend more time traveling or engaging in other activities that they couldn't do when they had to take care of their children.

Coping with the Empty Nest Syndrome:
Planning ahead can be very helpful so that you don't suddenly feel like you're adrift.

If you know that your youngest child will be moving out in the next year or so, speak to your spouse about how this change will affect your lives.

It might be a good time to rekindle your relationship with a romantic getaway, or maybe you'd like to make changes to your home now that your last child has moved out.

It might also be a time to mourn that your former familiar routines with your children, whether it involved taking them to soccer practice or dance classes as you take time to reinvent your life with your spouse.

Honest communication with your spouse is the key to navigating through this unfamiliar and challenging time.

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

I work with individuals 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.

Working in Therapy to Reclaim a Lost Part of Yourself

Throughout the course of a lifetime, many people disavow important parts of themselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously.  Often, these parts are disavowed because they're connected to painful traumatic emotional problems that remain unresolved.   Then, at some point later on in life, many people realize that they feel something is missing in their lives and what's missing is the part of themselves that has become buried and lost.  At that point, people often want to try to reclaim that lost part of themselves.

Reclaiming a Lost Part of Yourself

Let's look at a fictionalized scenario, which is based on many different therapy cases with all identifying  information changed to protect confidentiality:

Jim
When Jim was a young child, more than anything, he loved music.  By the time he was 11, he taught himself to play a guitar.

By the time he was 15, he and his friends formed a rock and roll band. And he was using the money he earned at his part time job to pay for formal guitar lessons because his parents couldn't afford to pay for his lessons.

He loved jamming with his band mates.  They had a strong rapport, especially when they were jamming.  They played at street parties and local events, and they had a great time.

More than anything, Jim wanted to make a career as a musician.  But his parents had other ideas. Since both of them grew up in poor families, they wanted Jim to go to college and choose a more practical career path.

Although she worried that Jim would struggle as a musician, Jim's mother was a little more understanding.  She never tried to discourage him from playing.  But Jim's father was quietly disapproving of his son's passion for music and the band.  He spoke to his wife about his concerns, but never told Jim.  He hoped Jim would outgrow his love of music and become "more practical."

When Jim was 17, he and his band mates were invited to play at a well-known club in the area.  Playing at this club had been Jim's dream since he was a child.  The club owner had heard them playing at Jim's high school, liked what he heard and approached Jim with an invitation to play on the following Saturday night.  Jim and his band mates were thrilled, and they practiced all week.

They invited their families and friends to hear them play and they all showed up, including Jim's parents.

Just before the show, Jim and the other boys were nervous and excited.  They had never played in this type of venue, and they knew that if they played well, the exposure could be great.

As they began playing and singing, Jim could feel that they were really "on."  The people in the audience were really into the music.  As he saw them on their feet dancing and clapping, Jim's nervousness dissipated as he lost himself in the music.

By the end of their set, the audience burst into thunderous applause, demanding an encore.  The club owner jumped onto the stage smiling broadly and clapping.  He encouraged them to play three more songs to the audience's enthusiastic applause.

By the end of the night, the club owner told Jim and his friends that he wanted them to play for the next three months at the club.  He wanted to talk to their parents about signing a contract.

Jim and his band mates were wildly happy.  This is what they had been dreaming about since they got together.

But when Jim looked over to where his parents were sitting, he knew something was wrong.  He could see his father sitting with his arms folded looking angry and disapproving.  His mother was smiling, but she looked worried.

At the end of the evening, when he went to his parents' table, Jim's father told him that he felt Jim and his friends had made fools of themselves on the stage.  Jim was crest fallen.  He never more humiliated than he had felt at that moment.  His father wouldn't even hear about the club owner's offer.  Jim was devastated.

As they drove home in stony silence, Jim tried to hold back bitter tears.  In that moment, he felt like he hated his father.  He was more determined than ever to pursue his music and to "show him" that he would make it in the music industry.

When they got home, Jim ran upstairs to his room, slammed the door, and threw himself on his bed.  Then, the tears came.  He couldn't believe that his father ruined one of the happiest days of his life.

Afterwards, his mother came to his room and tried to console him.  She told him that she knew how disappointed he felt.  She tried to tell Jim that, even though his father was harsh, his father was also worried about Jim pursuing music as a career.  She said that the father's harsh words were his awkward way of trying to prevent Jim from making what he thought would be a big mistake.  She thought the club owner's offer frightened Jim's father because he saw it as the beginning of Jim going down the wrong path.

Jim knew that, even though his mother was more sympathetic and understood how much his music meant to him, she also shared his father's worries.  It hurt him that his parents didn't have more confidence in him and they would try to keep from achieving his dream.

His mother said she would try to talk to his father to try to smooth things over.  But Jim knew that his father, who tended to be stubborn, wouldn't soften.  Jim knew that his father had made up his mind, and that was that.

The next day, Jim heard from each of his band mates.  All of them were excited about the night before, and told him that his parents were willing to sign the club owner's contract.  Jim told them about his father's reaction.  But he said he was determined to persevere--even if it meant that he forged his parents' signature on the contract.

Later that day, as Jim was leaving the house for band practice, Jim and his father got into a big argument.  The argument escalated to the point where Jim's father told him, "I have a good mind to forbid you from going to practice!" At that point, Jim's anger and frustration overtook him and he shouted, "I hate you!" as he ran out of the house.

By the time he got to band practice, Jim calmed down and he told himself he would apologize to his father when he got home and try to reason with him.  Deep down, Jim knew that his father's reaction came from fear.

But later on as Jim walked home, he saw the flashing lights of an ambulance in front of his house.  He ran down the block as fast as he could.  He got to the house to see his mother sobbing and his father being taken out in a stretcher and placed in the ambulance.

Between sobs, his mother told Jim that his father had a heart attack and the EMTs were unable to revive him.  His father was dead.  Jim was convinced that he had killed his father.

Twenty years later, Jim came to therapy because he felt like something was missing in his life, but he wasn't sure what it was.  He was happily married, and they had two beautiful children.  He liked his job as a high school counselor.  He just couldn't pinpoint why he was feeling so lost.

As Jim talked about his family history, he told me that, after his father died, he put down his guitar and never picked it up again.  His band mates pleaded with him not to give up his passion.  But all Jim could think about was his last words to his father, telling his father that he hated him.  And why?  Because his father was trying to protect him from, possibly, making a big mistake?  He felt so ashamed and selfish.  He believed he killed his father.

Jim felt deeply ashamed and filled with sadness, guilt and remorse.  Without Jim, the band broke up, and Jim and his friends drifted apart.

As an adult, Jim didn't even listened to music anymore.  Recalling his passion for music and his days with his band mates was inextricably and painfully intertwined with the fact that he and his father never reconciled before his father died.

 Over time, using Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body therapy, we worked towards separating out his former passion for music from his grief and shame related to his father's death.  In Somatic Experiencing, this is called "uncoupling."

As he mourned his father's death and dealt with his guilt and shame, it took a while because Jim felt he "didn't deserve" to feel better.

After Jim could experience some degree of pleasure in his memories about his music, he realized that what was missing in his life--his music.  As he remembered that his father had high blood pressure and he wasn't following the diet that the doctor prescribed for him, Jim realized that he wasn't to blame for his father's death and he no longer felt he had to punish himself.

Gradually, Jim started to recapture that lost part of himself--the passion he felt for his music.  Although he had no illusions that he would become famous, after many years, he picked up his guitar, which was hidden away in the basement.

Jim described the combination of emotional pain and joy that he felt as he began strumming awkwardly on his guitar.  But he also said he felt an emotion that was hard to describe--as if he was more integrated and whole.

After a while, Jim found a few men his age who shared his passion for music and they jammed together for fun.  As they played together, Jim felt a joy similar to how he once felt.

Reclaiming a Lost Part of Yourself:  Talking in Therapy Often Isn't Enough
Unfortunately, Jim's experience of disavowing an important part of himself is common.  But, unlike Jim, many people live the rest of their lives without recapturing that part.

Many people never realize what's missing and live out the rest of their lives with the sad feeling that they're not complete.

Often, just talking about it in therapy isn't enough because it remains an intellectual experience.  More often than not, a mind-body approach, like Somatic Experiencing, allows therapy clients to experience what they're unable to experience by just talking.

Getting Help in Therapy
If Jim's experience resonates with you, without even realizing it, you have also disavowed an important part of yourself that remains lost to you at this point.

But you're not alone.  Many therapy clients have been able to reclaiming lost parts of themselves through mind-body oriented therapy approaches, like Somatic Experiencing.  And you can too.

When you're looking for a Somatic Experiencing therapist, always choose a licensed psychotherapist who has mental health training.

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 therapy clients to reclaim lost parts of themselves so they can lead more fulfilling and meaningful 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.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling

Compassion for oneself and for others is an admirable quality that many of us strive to cultivate in ourselves.  Learning to be compassionate can help us to experience peace of mind within ourselves and with others.  Unfortunately, there are times when you might think you're being compassionate, but you're actually enabling other people's destructive behavior and creating a self destructive situation for yourself. 

It's not always so easy to distinguish compassion from enabling, especially when the situation involves people that you love.

Let's take a look at the following vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:

Ann
When Ann was in her early 30s, her father died unexpectedly from a heart attack.  It was a terrible shock to Ann, her mother, and Ann's siblings.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling

A couple of months after Ann's father's death, Ann's mother, Laura, asked Ann to have brunch with her to talk about Laura's finances.

It turned out that, even though Ann's father had left the mother well provided for, she was no longer able to live in the manner that she was accustomed to, and she asked Ann if she could help her for a few months until she could sell the house, move into a smaller house, and pare down her expenses.

Ann earned a very good living, and she felt a lot of compassion for her mother, so she agreed immediately to help her--with the understanding that Laura would pare down her extravagant spending and sell the large family home.

Even though Ann earned a very salary, after a while, contributing to her mother's expenses created a financial hardship for her.  So, a few months later, Ann asked Laura if she had any potential buyers for the house.

At first, Laura gave Ann a strange look, as if she didn't know what Ann was talking about.  Then, as if coming to herself, she brushed off Ann's question by changing the subject.

Ann knew that her mother had a strong emotional attachment to the family home, so she didn't press her, especially since she also knew that her mother was grieving.  She allowed a few more months  to go by before she asked about the sale of the home again.  But, by that point, Laura seemed annoyed and she told Ann that she had no intention of selling the family home.  It was as if she and Ann had never had their talk over brunch.

Ann wasn't sure what to do.  On the one hand, she knew that her mother was accustomed to being maintained in a certain way, and Ann felt sad for her mother.  But, on the other hand, she also knew that she couldn't afford to keep giving her money, and she felt very guilty about this.  When she spoke to her siblings, they wanted nothing to do with their mother's finances, and they refused to help.  So, Ann felt the burden completely on her shoulders.

At that point, Ann was having many sleepless nights and she came to therapy to deal with this thorny problem.  She told me that she had always considered herself to be a compassionate person, and she cared about her mother very much.  She felt this problem was such an emotional dilemma for her that she didn't know what to do.

As we explored this issue, Ann began to see how self destructive it was for her to keep supporting her mother, especially since it meant that Ann was making certain financial sacrifices to do it and her mother wasn't willing to curb her spending or change her lifestyle at all.

Over time, Ann realized that her mother was caught in a vicious cycle of overspending, and she was in denial about the changes she needed to make.  These were changes that would still allow her to take a few vacations a year and have most of what she wanted.  But she would have to pare down her extravagant living and sell her expensive home.

Ann also realized that she had crossed the line from being compassionate to enabling, and she wasn't helping her mother.

Gradually, Ann summoned the courage to have a serious talk with her mother and to set boundaries with her.  She gave her a reasonable amount of time to sell the house and to make other changes in her spending habits.  Initially, Laura was angry and hurt.  This made Ann feel guilty at first, but she knew in her gut that the current situation was untenable, and she was doing the right thing for both of them.  Eventually, Laura accepted the situation and began making changes.

For a while, Laura was cool towards Ann.  But, over time, they reconciled their relationship.  During that time, Ann also allowed herself to see that her mother had a long history of being self centered, which Ann's siblings were able to see before Ann could admit this to herself.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling is a Common Experience
The fictionalized vignette above, where compassion turned into enabling is a common experience.  Very often, the person, who starts out feeling love and compassion, has his or her heart in the right place, but their judgment becomes skewed.

In the vignette above, the original agreement for Ann to help her mother was reasonable, but Laura didn't abide by her end of the agreement.  At that point, when Ann continued to go along with her mother, Ann crossed the line to enabling.  This is so easy to do, especially when there's a loss or a crisis.

The important thing to remember is that enabling a loved one in destructive behavior is not good for either one of you.  So, even though you might feel like you're helping him or her, your enabling is doing more harm than good, even if your loved one can't see it.

Getting Help in Therapy
If  this vignette above resonates with you and you find yourself stuck in a similar situation, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed therapist who can help you to untangle all the emotional threads that make you feel stuck.  

A therapist, who has expertise in helping therapy clients with this type of issue, can often be more objective and see certain enabling dynamics that you're unable to see and help you to work through them.

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 distinguish between being compassionate and enabling so they could make positive changes 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.

Relationships: The Importance of Expressing Gratitude to Your Partner

As a psychotherapist in New York City who works with individual adults and couples, one of the most common complaints I hear from people in relationships is that they feel unappreciated by their spouses or partners. They talk about how they feel taken for granted because their partners don't express their gratitude for the many big and little things they do. This occurs in many relationships, especially long-term relationships.

The Importance of Expressing Gratitude to Your Spouse

It's Easy to Take Your Spouse For Granted Over Time

It's easy to see how this can occur over time. When we're dating, we're on our best behavior. The relationship is new and exciting. We're learning new things all the time about the other person. We're more likely, at that point, to express gratitude and appreciation.

But as time goes on and we settle into a long-term relationship and our lives become somewhat more routine, we often forget the kindness and gratitude we expressed early on. Often, it's not even that we don't feel grateful--it's more that we forget to say it.

Don't Assume That Your Spouse Knows How You Feel

During couples counseling, when one of the people in the relationship raises this issue, the other person will usually say, "Of course, I'm grateful for everything she does. But why do I need to say it?  She should know..."

Take the Time to Express and Show Your Gratitude to Your Spouse
And, while it's true that the partner might know on some level, it's important to actually say it. We usually express gratitude to other people in our lives.

The Importance of Expressing Gratitude to Your Spouse: Take the Time to Express and Show Your Gratitude

Why wouldn't we express gratitude to the person we care about most?

It takes so little time and effort to let our loved ones know that who they are to us and the things they do are meaningful to us.

Taking this time to express gratitude can make such a difference to your spouse and to the well-being of your relationship.

About Me

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

I work with individuals 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.

Discovering That You've Developed the Same Traits You Disliked in Your Parents

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I often see clients who realize, much to their chagrin, that they've developed the very traits that they disliked so much in their parents.  This realization usually comes as an unwanted surprise and somewhat of a mystery to them and they often say:  "How is it possible that I developed the same qualities that I disliked so much in your parents?"

Discovering Your Developed the Same Traits You Disliked in Your Parents

To understand and come to terms with this phenomenon, you need to understand how we all internalize  these qualities (and others) on an unconscious level at an early age.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed, will help to illustrate this common experience:

Nina
When Nina was in her late teens, she couldn't wait to go away to college to get away from her anxious mother.  Having raised Nina as a single mother, Mary always worried about money, even after she obtained a relatively secure, well paying job.

Mary grew up in a large family where they were always on the edge financially.  They were evicted from one apartment after another because Mary's father was often unemployed.  During those times when they lost their apartment, they would move in with Mary's grandmother until Mary's father could get back on his feet again.  The family was always worried about money and, in their case, they had good reason to be worried.

When Nina was born, Mary was a senior in college.  With help from her parents, who were by now in a better financial position, she was able to finish college while she lived with her parents and her mother took care of Nina.  The first few years out of college were rough.  Nina's father disappeared, so Mary couldn't count on him to provide child support.  But, eventually, she landed a well paying job which allowed her to live on her own with Nina and pay for child care.

But despite the fact that, by all objective standards, Mary and Nina were financially secure, Mary continued to worry about money.  Whenever Nina would try to tell her mother that she had no reason to worry, Mary would acknowledge that they were doing well now, but she would say, "You never know when disaster might strike in the future and everything could be wiped out."

This bothered Nina a great deal.  It made her feel frustrated and angry with her mother.  She vowed to herself that she would never be like her mother.  And, after she moved away from college and she began working, she moved to NYC and got her own apartment.

Soon after she had her own place, Mary realized, much to her chagrin, that she was worrying about money in much the same way as her mother did.  Objectively, she knew that she had a well-paying job and her career prospects looked bright.  But there was an irrational part of her that kept nagging at her:  What if something happened and it all disappears?

Nina felt even more annoyed and frustrated with herself than she did with her mother.  She was furious that she had taken on the very trait that angered her about her mother.

Nina tried reading self help books about how to develop self confidence and how to stop worrying, but she only experienced short term gains.  After a while, she reverted back to worrying needlessly about her financial security.  That's when she started therapy.

I worked with Nina to try to help her to see that her propensity to worry about money was part of a long history in her family that went back beyond her grandparents' generation.  It was part of a longstanding transgenerational trauma that was transmitted unconsciously from one generation to the next, which is one of the reasons why it defied Nina's efforts to overcome the problem using logic alone.

See my article:  Psychotherapy and Transgenerational Trauma

Using mind-body therapy, like clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing, we worked together so that Nina could overcome the transgenerational trauma that caused her to worry needlessly about her financial security.

There Are Many Reasons Why Adult Children Develop the Traits That They Dislike in Their Parents
Transgenerational trauma is one reason why adult children take on the traits they so disliked in one or both parents.  There are many other reasons, usually unconscious, why this occurs.

Getting Help in Therapy
When you discover that you have developed the traits that you disliked in your parents, you might feel stuck.  But it's important to realize, as I mentioned before, that this is a common phenomenon, you're not alone and, with the help of a licensed therapist who has expertise in this area, you can overcome this problem and lead a 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.

I have helped many clients overcome transgenerational trauma and other emotional experiences so they could lead fulfilling 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.

Are You Hooked on the Roller Coaster of Emotional Drama?

Life has its inevitable ups and downs which we can't avoid.  This is a natural part of life and learning how to negotiate these inevitable ups and downs is part of becoming a resilient human being.  But when I refer to "getting off the emotional roller coaster," which is the title of this article, I'm referring to an emotional dynamic that goes beyond these common ups and downs.  I'm referring to a dynamic that goes through emotional cycles of exhilarating highs and despairing lows, which makes most people feel off balance after a while.

Hooked on Roller Coaster of Emotional Drama

But there are many people who are hooked on emotional drama.  They live their lives on an emotional roller coaster and don't realize that this is the dynamic in their life.

They often don't see that they're creating the emotional roller coaster with the decisions they make and the relationships they choose to be in.  Instead, they feel victimized by this dynamic because they don't realize that they can get off the emotional roller coaster.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized scenario based on a composite of many cases (without any identifying information):

Mia:

When Mia started therapy, she was living her life from one crisis to the next.  She experienced emotional highs when she felt she was in a wonderful relationship and her career was going well.  But these emotional highs usually turned to despair when her latest relationship fell apart and she lost almost every job that she ever had.

Mia felt victimized by these experiences--as if they were happening to her and she was powerless to have any effect on her life.

But as we looked closer at these situations, there was a dynamic that became apparent in almost all of them, which was that, to a large degree, Mia had a big part in creating the very situations which she lamented.

Her most recent relationship ended after her boyfriend was incarcerated for insider trading.  Initially, Mia said she had no idea that her boyfriend was involved in anything shady.  But as we looked at the early days of this relationship, there were plenty of "red flags" that Mia chose to ignore, including a long list of her boyfriend's sociopathic behavior.  

During the good times, Mia and her boyfriend lived in his luxury condo.  He lavished her with expensive gifts, and took her on expensive vacations.  But all of this ended when Mia's boyfriend was taken out of his office in handcuffs.  Then, Mia felt the depths of despair.  

Prior to this relationship, Mia was involved in a string of relationships that kept her on a continuous emotional roller coaster.  Each time there were "red flags" that she chose to ignore in favor of the emotional drama in the relationships.

Her career followed a similar pattern where Mia started out as a star at her workplace and then, through a series of self sabotaging behavior, eventually got fired.  Just like her lack of insight into the choices she made in her romantic relationships, she didn't see how she was sabotaging herself in her career.  

As we looked at her family history, it became evident that Mia's parents plunged the family into one crisis after another because of the decisions they made.  At various times in their lives, they went from having a fairly high standard of living to being nearly bankrupted.  

As Mia talked about the emotional roller coaster of her early life, she looked exhilarated.  Most people, who were not hooked on emotional trauma, would have talked about this type of family history with a lot of emotional pain.  But it was evident that Mia was hooked on the emotional drama involved in her chaotic early life.  And being hooked on emotional drama from an early age had become a way of life for her.

Although there were times when the drama became too much for her, as when her boyfriend was incarcerated, most of the time, without realizing it, she was hooked on the emotional drama.

It wasn't easy for Mia to see that she had a hand in creating the emotional drama or, at the very least, when she wasn't actively creating the drama, she was in denial about the early warning signs.

Many people, who are hooked on emotional drama, choose to leave therapy before they develop enough insight to change.  Getting off the emotional roller coaster which, in many cases, is all they know, is too threatening.

These people might blame the therapist or find other reasons for leaving therapy.  They often go from one therapist to another or one type of therapy to another.  But when the therapist tries to help them see their part in creating the chaos in their life, they leave rather than risk change.

Fortunately, Mia stayed.  But work was slow because she had such a blind spot and she was highly ambivalent, at best, about changing.  During that time, she got into another tumultuous relationship and she lost another promising job.

By then, Mia was getting tired of the highs and lows that her life.  At that point, she was more open to seeing her part.  But she was worried that her life would be boring without the emotional drama.  

Mia didn't know how to live her life without being on an emotional roller coaster, so we worked on helping her develop better internal resources and other ways to feel good about herself without resorting to creating crisis in her life or getting involved in chaotic relationships.

We also worked on helping her to mourn her unmet emotional needs as a child.  To begin doing this work, she had to develop the capacity to tolerate the grief without getting back on the emotional roller coaster to avoid dealing with uncomfortable feelings.

The work was slow and progress was often one step forward and two steps backwards.  But, over time, Mia discovered that she could lead a happy life without creating chaos or going from one emotional crisis to another.

Getting Help in Therapy

If Mia's story resonates with you, you're not alone.  You can get help from a licensed mental health professional to get off your emotional roller coaster so you can lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life without the drama.

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.

Self Care Is NOT Selfish

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see many psychotherapy clients who were raised to believe that taking care of themselves makes them selfish people.  They were raised to believe that they should always put other people first.  Often, this was part of the family's religious or spiritual beliefs.  

Being raised to feel that taking care of yourself makes you a selfish person can create a lot of problems later on in life, and this can be challenging to overcome.

Self Care Is NOT Selfish

Let's look at a fictionalized scenario, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed:

Beth

When Beth began therapy, she was in an emotional crisis.  She felt that her life was meaningless and lacked direction.

She was in a long-term relationship with Dan, a man who had a high profile career in the entertainment industry.  Their life together revolved around his work, which involved many social engagements, travel and being in the spotlight much of the time.

When they first met, Beth was a freelance writer who was having a degree of success.  During the first several years, she didn't mind that their lives revolved around his career.  Since she wasn't tied down to a work location and she could work from anywhere, she enjoyed the travel and social activities involved in his work.

As Dan's career took off, Beth discovered that the social aspects were taking over more and more of her  free time, so she had little time to write.  Gradually, she let go of her writing career, with Dan's encouragement.  He told her that he needed her help and support to focus on his success.  He was making a lot of money, and he told her that she didn't need to write any more.  They didn't need her income.

Beth went along with this for while.  But, over time, Beth got tired of "being on" at social engagements to advance Dan's career.  When she tried to tell Dan that, at times, she would prefer to stay home than to go to, yet again, another party where she began to feel that the people boring and the conversations banal, Dan became furious with her.

Dan told Beth that she was being selfish.  After all, he said, she knew all too well that people would wonder why he was showing up by himself.   Why would she want to do anything that would ruin his image?   As far as he was concerned, Beth staying at home wasn't an option.

Beth knew that Dan could be the most kind, generous, charming and warm person when he was happy and got his way.  She also knew that he would become angry and say hurtful, spiteful things when she or anyone else got in the way of what he wanted and felt he deserved. 

So, rather than get into an argument, Beth acceded to Dan's wishes.  She took his arm, smiled and made small talk at the party, as Dan expected her to do, while Dan used his charm to further his career at the party.

All the while, Beth felt she was there in body only.  She felt miserable and her mind was a million miles away.  But, over time, she had attended enough of these social events so that she could fake her way through it.

But this was the start of Beth, who was in her early 30s, feeling that she was just going through the motions and watching her life slip away.  Life felt like a series of meaningless social events where she felt more and more disconnected from her inner world.

If he noticed what was happening to Beth, Dan didn't say anything.  It wasn't until Beth became so depressed that she could barely get out of bed that Dan got angry with Beth again.  He criticized her for being lazy and gaining weight.  He told her to "get a grip" and "get over" feeling sorry for herself.  After all, wasn't he providing her with the kind of life that many people only dream about?

After Dan's tirade, Beth wondered if she was being ungrateful, but she couldn't muster the kind of enthusiasm that Dan felt.  She just wanted to stay home for a change instead of being out all the time with people she didn't know well, didn't care about and who didn't care about her beyond her role as Dan's girlfriend.

It was around that time Beth suspected that Dan was having an affair.  He was staying out unusually late and he was barely paying attention to her when they were at home together.  When they went out to parties, he was attentive to her around other people, but Beth knew it was only an act to impress others.

After a while, Dan stopped insisting that Beth come with him to social events.  She knew that he was probably taking another woman.  She wasn't sure how she felt that her relationship was falling apart or how she felt in general.  

She had been pretending for so long to be happy that she wasn't sure anymore what her feelings were.  This is when she decided to start therapy rather than continuing to slip down into depression.

Beth's family history didn't include any major emotional trauma.  The family was close knit with loving parents.  But one thing stood out:  Her family emphasized taking care of others' needs as being much more important than taking care of one's own needs.  They were involved in local charity work and social causes.  

Beth's parents encouraged her to get a good education.  They also encouraged her to write.  But it was always understood that Beth's educational and writing pursuits should be geared towards social causes and helping others.  There was no emphasis on pursuits for the sake of enjoyment or one's own well-being  To them, this would have been selfish.

So, when Dan told Beth that he needed her to focus on his success, this didn't seem unusual to her.  It was in keeping with how she was raised.

The problem was that, over time, it wasn't meaningful enough for Beth, and she felt alienated from her own inner world.  When she tried to explain this to Dan, she knew he had a hard time understanding it.  He was very extroverted, seemingly without a need to nurture his inner world.  He couldn't understand what Beth meant when she tried to explain that she felt like she was losing herself.  

Dan's attitude was that their life together should be enough for her.  And if Beth was unhappy, as far as he was concerned, it was because she was selfish and unappreciative of all his hard work and what he had given to her.

By the time Beth started therapy, she and Dan were coexisting together.  There was no intimacy of any kind.  

Beth worked hard in therapy to reconnect to her inner emotional world.  We used Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body psychotherapy, to help her gain access to her inner world again.  She also resumed writing and submitting her work for publication. 

Over time, Beth began to realize that she lost her sense of self in order to appease Dan.  She had stopped doing the things which made life meaningful to her.  She realized that these were the things that were part of her taking care of herself and when she let them go, she stopped doing what was essential for her well-being.

When Dan told her that he was leaving her for another woman, Beth felt a mixture of relief and sadness.  She was sad for the love that she and Dan experienced at the beginning of their relationship, but she was relieved to leave behind the life that made her feel so unhappy and detached from herself.

Gradually, as we continued to work together, Beth learned to approach self care with balance.   She also realized that, even though Dan told her that she was selfish, he was actually the one who was being selfish and self centered, and he lacked enough empathy to understand her.

Eventually, she fell in love with a man who was emotionally supportive in a genuine way and who cared about her needs as well as his own.

Getting Help in Therapy

It's easy to slip into a state where you lose sight of the fact that you're not taking care of your own emotional needs--until life seems to lack meaning.

But it's also possible to recover and learn to take care of yourself in meaningful ways with the help of a licensed therapist who specializes in helping clients to live a balanced life.

About Me

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

I have helped many therapy clients to learn to live meaningful 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.

Also, see my article: Self Care - Feeling Entitled to Take Care of Yourself.

Mourning Your Future Dreams in Your Former Relationship

Mourning the future might seem like an odd concept at first.  But, as I'll discuss, mourning often involves not only mourning for the past and present, but also mourning for what will never happen in the future.

Mourning Your Future Dreams From Your Former Relationship

Mourning the Death of a Loved One
We usually associate mourning with the death of a loved one.

If the relationship with the loved one was good, we mourn the loss of the loved one as well as the loss of what we don't have now as well as what we won't have in the future.

If the relationship wasn't as good as we would have liked it, in addition to mourning the loss of the loved one, we mourn what we didn't have in that relationship that we would have liked to have had in the past and the present.  We also mourn what can never be in the future.

The Breakup of a Relationship
The breakup and loss of a romantic relationship can feel like a death even when there's no physical death involved.  It's the end (or death) of the relationship.

If the romantic relationship was good in the past, we might reminisce about the days when it was what we both wanted, but we can no longer have in the present or the future.

All the future plans we had with this person, who we thought we would be as individuals as well as to each other--all of this is part of the mourning process.

Here's an example, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:

Alice
Alice and Bob, who were in their late 20s, were engaged to be married.  They had been together for three years and, for most of that time, they were happy together.

But then, four months prior to their wedding, Bob told Alice that he wasn't ready to get married--even though all their plans were in motion, they had talked about how they wanted to start a family, where they wanted to live, and how their lives would be in the future.

Bob told Alice that she was his first serious girlfriend and he realized that he wasn't ready to make that kind of commitment.  He thought he should go out with other women to make sure that he wasn't jumping into a marriage with Alice too quickly.

Alice was completely shocked.  Bob had never mentioned this to her before.  She had no idea he felt this way.

Even though Alice realized that Bob was emotionally torn up about his decision, Alice felt overwhelmed by a combination of shock, disbelief, anger and sadness.

A few months after the breakup and the cancellation of their wedding plans, Alice came to therapy to sort out her feelings.

By now, she realized, in hindsight, that there were telltale signs that Bob wasn't ready to get married, but she ignored these warning signs.

Even though she was angry with Bob, she still very much loved him and missed him in her current life and missed the relationship that they had in the past.

As we continued to work together, Alice realized on a deeper emotional level that the future she thought she would have with Bob--all the things she wanted in her life with him--weren't going to be possible now.  And she wasn't going to be who she thought she'd be--at least not in the context of a life with Bob.

So, she mourned for the past, the present as well as the future of her dreams with Bob.

Mourning Before "Moving On"
Our culture places a high value on "moving on" from loss as opposed to giving ourselves the time we need to mourn our losses on multiple levels, including past, present and future.

But if we force ourselves to push our feelings down without working them through, we risk having an even more protracted form of grief that could manifest itself in other ways, including depression as well as physical illness.

Mourning is a Personal Process
Mourning is different for everyone.  No one can tell you what the mourning process should be for you.  It's best not to rush the process or to try to conform to other people's ideas of the mourning process.

There can be many ups and downs with mourning--whether it's mourning the death of a loved one or mourning the loss of a relationship.

Sadness often comes in waves.  How and when the waves occur is often unknown until they occur.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're dealing with a loss and you feel alone, misunderstood by others or you feel confused by the profusion of feelings you're experiencing, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist who has experience helping psychotherapy clients to work through the mourning process.

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 people to work through the mourning process so that, in time, when it was right for them, they did eventually move on in a meaningful way.

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

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