Exploring Synchronicities - Part II

In my prior blog post, Exploring Synchronicities - Part 1, I discussed the nature of synchronicities and gave a brief summary of Carl Gustav Jung's theory.  I also discussed how Jung's ideas on synchronicities and the occult was a contributing factor to the rift between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.

Carl Jung

Demystifying Synchronicities 
As I mentioned in the prior blog post, Jung's theory dominates the professional literature about synchronicities. However, there are other theories, which are psychodyamic explanations about the nature of synchronicities. One such theory is by Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D. My intention today is to explore his concepts, which are detailed in his new book, Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) (2010).

I recently attended a professional talk with Dr. Williams in his West Village office, where he has been for the last 43 years. The talk was based on his research, which he writes about in his book. According to Dr. Williams, he has been exploring synchronicities for many years, including his own and his patients' synchronicities. Dr. Gibbs has recorded a fascinating collection of meaningful coincidences (or synchronicities) in his book.

Dr. Williams theory about synchronicities is in sharp contrast to Jung's concepts. As you may recall, Jung believed that when people have synchronicities, they are connecting to transcendent, spiritual experiences. Jung's theory is that synchronicities are connected to the collective unconscious and to spiritual archetypes. He also believed that these experiences could not be researched because they were acausal and unpredictable as to when they would occur. (For more on Carl Gustav Jung and his theories, go to the C.G. Jung Foundation in NYC website: (http://www.cgjungny.org).

Synchronicities as Naturalistic, Psychodynamic Experiences
Gibbs A. Williams' psychodynamic theory is that synchronistic experiences are not connected to any mystical or spiritual experiences, and they are not part of the collective unconscious. Dr. Williams' theory, as I understand it, is that synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, experiences. Rather than being part of the collective unconscious, synchronicities are part of the individuals' personal unconscious. As Dr. Williams explains it, these meaningful coincidences are a combination of 1) internal, creative processes and 2) an attunement with the environment. According to Dr. Willilams, the environment provides us with so much stimuli to choose from that, when we are having synchronistic experiences, we selectively attune to those that relate to our own internal creative process that we are undergoing at that point in time.

Synchronistic Experiences at "Stuck Points"
According to Dr. Williams, these synchronistic experiences tend to occur when people are either at emotional "stuck points" or impasses in their lives (the proverbial "fork in the road"), or if when these individuals are searchers or seekers of their own internal truth. He gave many interesting examples of his own and his patients' experiences with synchronicities. All of them are uncanny experiences. These and other experiences with meaningful coincidences are outlined in his book.

There are also other psychodynamic theories about synchronicities, including the theories of M.D. Faber in his seminal work, Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion. According to Faber, synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, regressive experiences. According to Dr. Wiliams, who takes Faber's concepts one step further, synchronicities are not only regressive experiences--they are also progressive experiences, providing opportunities for psychological synthesis and an internal cohesiveness for the individuals who have them.

Dr. Williams continues to do his research on synchronicities, and if you're interested in learning more about his theories or contributing your ideas and experiences, you can go to his website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Synchronistic Experiences and Intuitive Dreams
I've been interested in synchronicities for many years. My own experiences usually occur through intuitive dreams where I have a dream that something will occur and within a short time, it actually occurs. My experience has been that I tend to have synchronicities when I write down and focus on my dreams. Over the years, I've had many intuitive dreams, mostly about people in my life, but also about impersonal experiences. Some of them have been uncanny experiences.

The intuitive dream that stands out in my mind was when I had a dream that I was visiting a friend, L. We were standing in her living room, and she told me about a car accident that our mutual friend, R, was just in. When I woke up, I wrote down the dream, but I didn't think much of it since I had just seen both of my friends and they were both fine. However, about a week later, I was visiting L and we were standing in her living room in the same spot where we stood in the dream, and she told me that she had just heard that R was in a car accident. She described the accident in the same way that she described it in my dream. Fortunately, R was not seriously injured.

Needless to say, I was shocked. In the past, I had other synchronistic experiences, but nothing like this. For me, this was truly an uncanny, awe-inspiring, meaningful coincidence. L and I talked about my dream and how it related to what had just occurred. We both agreed that this was surprising. Neither of us had an explanation for it at the time.

As I explained to Dr. Williams when I met him, it seems that, as far as I can tell, my own experiences with synchronicities don't fall neatly into Jungian concepts or into Williams' or Faber's explanation of synchronicities. I didn't experience them as part of a collective unconscious or related to archetypes. They were neither regressive experiences nor did they occur during emotional impasses. You could say that they are intuitive experiences, but this doesn't seem to be the whole explanation. So, it seems that more research is needed.

On the day that I attended Dr. Williams' talk, one other psychoanalyst attended. Since there were only two of us, we had a chance to have a conversation with Dr. Williams about his experiences as well as our own synchronicities rather than it being a formal presentation.

There was also an interesting coincidence that day: The other psychoanalyst had an office in the same small West Village building where I have my own office; she has been there for about the same length of time as I have been there; we're both there on the same days and travel up to our offices on the only elevator in the building--and yet we've never seen each other before until we met at this talk about synchronicities.

If you're interested in exploring your own synchronicities, I recommend that you keep a journal with your dreams and synchronicities. Dr. Williams also recommends that you include the context of what is going on in your life at the time and compare your synchronicities to your life experiences to see how they might relate.

To find out more about synchronicities, you can explore the following resources:

Websites:
Gibbs A. Willilams, Ph.D. website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Carl G. Jung Foundation in NYC: (http://www.cgjungny.org

Books:
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections: Carl G. Jung

Man and His Symbols - Carl G. Jung

Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D.

Synchronicity: C.G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion M.D. Faber

I am a NYC psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR 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.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part I

What Are Synchronicities?
Have you ever had the uncanny experience of thinking or dreaming about a person, place or an event and then having your thoughts or dreams actually manifest in your life?

Exploring Synchronicities

For most people, when this occurs, especially if these experiences occur with any regularity, it can be an awe-inspiring event that seems mysterious and even perplexing. Some people attribute these uncanny experiences to a connection with the divine. Others believe they are intuitive experiences, and others aren't sure what to make of them. But, for the majority of people who experience these uncanny events, they feel meaningful, and in many cases, they can be life changing experiences. But how are we to understand these events?

Psychoanalytic Theories About Synchronicities:
There are many views about synchronicities and their origins. Most theorists agree that synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. They seem to occur out of the blue and from nowhere. Often, synchronicities are pleasurable experiences that leave people feeling more integrated and that they are part of something much larger than themselves, as if their internal experiences are, somehow, connecting to something external that is much larger than themselves.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung:
Most of the literature on synchronicities is dominated by the writings of Carl Jung, who wrote about his experiences with synchronicities after he and Sigmund Freud had an irreparable falling out about the occult in the early 1900s.

Carl Jung

Sigmund Freud

Prior to their falling out, Freud, who was the father of psychoanalysis, viewed Jung as the "heir apparent" for psychoanalysis, the person who would carry on and continue to expound and develop Freud's views on psychoanalysis. Based on the literature and their letters to each other, it seems that Jung also saw himself in that role before their falling out. He used Freud's psychoanalytic theories with his own patients, but it seems that he felt that there was something missing in Freud's theories that he wanted to explore on his own.

Early on, Jung revered Freud. Jung was young enough to be Freud's son. Based on their correspondence to each other, Jung seemed to see Freud as his spiritual father. Jung's own father was, supposedly, very distant with Jung and his relationship with his mother was severed at a very early age due to her mental illness, so Jung grew up being a lonely child. So, his relationship with Freud was very meaningful to him, like the father that he never had. In their early correspondence to one another, there is a tone of father-son affection between them.

But for Jung, although he had great admiration, respect and reverence for Freud and he used Freud's psychoanalytic theory with patients with some success, he came to feel that there was something missing. He continued to explore psychoanalytic concepts on his own, and he came to the conclusion that Freud's psychoanalytic theory placed too much emphasis on sexuality and resolving the Oedipus Complex. Jung came to feel that Freud's psychoanalytic concepts were devoid of a much-needed sense of spirituality and were missing the importance of the pre-Oedipal period of infancy.

As you may know, Freud was essentially an atheist and a rationalist. Jung, on the other hand, had a strong sense of curiosity about all types of spirituality from different cultures and also about the occult. Freud was also curious about the occult, but only to a point. He was wary of what he came to see as Jung's obsession with the occult and this is what eventually lead to the break between them.

One fateful day, Jung and Freud were talking about psychoanalysis and the occult in Freud's study. Apparently, Freud warned Jung against getting too involved and obsessed with the occult. If we can imagine this scene: Here were two geniuses who, until then, liked and had a mutual affection for one another, who were beginning to clash over ideas that each of them held very dear. According to the story, Jung began to feel very angry, as if he was burning up inside. Then, suddenly, as if from nowhere, they were both startled by a loud noise from Freud's bookcase. It seemed to come from nowhere.

As the story goes, Jung told Freud that this noise was evidence of occult phenomenon. Freud was curious about what just happened, but he wasn't buying that this had anything to do with the occult, so he dismissed Jung's assertions, which angered Jung even more. So, Jung told Freud that he would prove to Freud that the noise was an occult manifestation and predicted that it would happen again. And, sure enough, the loud noise occurred again and Freud was startled and amazed by this.

After this Freud and Jung each explored what this sudden noise might have been. Jung continued to attribute it to a mysterious occult manifestation. Initially, Freud was curious about this and he didn't completely dismiss it as out of hand, especially after Jung seemed able to predict that it would occur a second time. However, over time, Freud concluded that the noise occurred due to a change in temperature in the room and the bookcase, which was made of wood, creaking (although he seemed to have no explanation as to why it occurred a second time, as Jung predicted). After that, he dismissed Jung's ideas about the incident completely, which continued to infuriate Jung.

As previously mentioned, early on, Freud saw Jung as the "heir apparent" who would carry on his psychoanalytic theory and his legacy. But as Jung continued to explore the occult, Freud became concerned that Jung's ideas would be harmful for psychoanalysis. As the story goes, Freud feared that people would view Jung's ideas about psychoanalysis and the occult as outrageous and this would lead to the demise of the development of psychoanalysis. Freud had dedicated his life to developing his psychoanalytic theory, and he very much wanted to have a proponent of his ideas, his "heir apparent," to be taken seriously so that psychoanalysis would continue to grow and develop throughout the world.

After the incident in Freud's study, their relationship became more distant, which must have been painful for both of them, but it was especially painful for Jung. After the break in their friendship and professional relationship, Jung had what Jungians have come to describe as "a creative illness, " essentially a nervous breakdown. However, being the creative genius that he was, he was able to continue to see patients through this period and he also began writing about his own internal experiences in the Red Book, including his experiences with meaningful coincidences, also known as synchronicities.

Jung saw synchronicities as being inspired by the divine. In his view, which is the view that dominates in professional literature, when someone experiences a synchronicity (or a meaningful coincidence), he or she is getting in touch with the collective unconscious and archetypetal figures in the spiritual or occult realm. Jung felt that, because these uncanny experiences occurred suddenly and out of the blue, they could not be researched or explained in any other way.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part II:
Also, see my article: Exploring Synchronicities - Part II where I continue to explore the fascinating phenomenon of synchronicities and present an alternative, psychodynamic theory, based on the work of the NYC psychoanalyst, Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D., that differs from Jung's archetypal/collective unconscious theory.

In the meantime, keeping a journal of your synchronicities can be a fascinating experience, especially if you include the context of what's going on in your life at the time.

About Me

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

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

As a psychotherapist in NYC, I am continually amazed at the new possibilities that open up in people's lives when they work through old wounds or trauma that have kept them trapped, sometimes for many years, in old, constricted patterns that have robbed their lives of joy and aliveness.

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

I have many different treatment modalities that I use, including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral treatment, and mind-body oriented psychotherapy like clinical hypnosis, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, depending upon the needs of the client. I usually find that clients' lives often begin to open up in ways that they never imagined possible when they work through problems that they didn't even realize were holding them back in their lives.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with no identifying information (to protect confidentiality) is an example of this phenomenon:

Nina:
Nina was in her early 40s when she came to see me. At the time, she had not been in a relationship for several years.

She was very lonely and wanted to be in a relationship, but whenever she began dating someone that she liked, she was overcome with so much fear and self doubt that, without realizing it at the time, she would find a way to sabotage the relationship before it could develop any further.

Nina realized that she was sabotaging her relationships

It was only after the relationships ended that she realized that she had sabotaged them, but by then it was too late. She knew that she was caught in an old pattern that was keeping her stuck, but she didn't know how to break the cycle.

Not surprisingly, she had the same pattern with her prior psychotherapists. She would become so uncomfortable in her therapy that, even when she liked the therapist at the start of therapy, she would become too anxious to stay in therapy when she and the therapist began delving into some of her core issues.

At the point when she came to see me, she was feeling the same fear and ambivalence about what might come up in therapy that might make her want to run out the door.

Given how fearful and ambivalent Nina felt about beginning therapy again, it was important to begin the work by helping Nina to have a sense of safety in the therapy. We began by doing some emotionally grounding exercises to help her feel calm.

We also worked on her picturing in her mind's eye various friends, allies and protector figures that she could call on in her mind to be with her when she began to feel afraid. In addition, we worked on Nina establishing a safe or relaxing place where she could go in her mind whenever anything that we talked about made her feel too uncomfortable.

Just from doing these simple, but powerful, exercises, I could see her breathing calmed down, her jaw unclenched, and the color came back into her face. These exercises helped Nina to stay present in the sessions and, knowing that we could stop whenever she began to feel too uncomfortable, allowed her to feel safer and in control.

We also worked with her problems in a titrated way. We didn't dive into the most traumatic issues immediately because these issues were too emotionally activating for Nina. Instead, we would do a piece of the work that felt tolerable to her in each session and, based on Somatic Experiencing principles, we might go back and forth between the talking about the problem and Nina visualizing her safe or relaxing place.

In Somatic Experiencing this is called pendulation, which means that the client and therapist "pendulate" between Nina actively working on a problem and experiencing the calm and safety of visualizing the safe place or her supportive friends, allies and protective figures.

This pendulation might happen several times in a session, depending upon Nina's needs. However, as Nina began to build more resilience and emotional capacity over time, she relied on these techniques less.

With regard to Nina's fears and self doubts in intimate relationships, as we explored her family history, we began to make connections between her current feelings and how she was shamed in her family as a child.

Her parents, who were otherwise loving and well-meaning people, were very concerned that their children shouldn't developed "swelled heads" or become too egotistical. So, to counteract this concern, their pattern was to down play any of their children's accomplishments.

So, when any of the children, including Nina, brought home an "A" from school or won a prize for accomplishing something outstanding, rather than praising their children, they would warn them about the dangers of "resting on their laurels" and becoming complacent.

The effect for Nina was that she could almost never feel a sense of healthy pride or joy about what she accomplished. Instead, she developed a pattern of discounting what she had accomplished, and she worried about what she would have to do next. At an early age, her life was robbed of the joy, aliveness, and self confidence she might have felt if she was allowed to bask in healthy pride.

Nina's parents were also very worried and insecure about the future. Even though, from a practical point of view, the family was financially secure and there was no objective reason to think that they would become destitute, both parents lived their lives as if their financial security could be robbed at any moment.

They imparted to their children that they all had to be very careful and on guard about what might happen in the future that could take everything away at a moment's notice. No doubt, Nina's parents were very affected by their own experiences of trauma in their families of origin, and they never went to therapy to work this out.

In addition, although they were well liked in their community, when they were behind closed doors at home with Nina and their siblings, her parents warned them against trusting people too much outside of their family.

As a child, whenever Nina brought home a new friend, her parents were polite and friendly. But when that friend left, her parents expressed their wariness about what these friends' parents might be like and that Nina had to be very careful with "outsiders."

Although Nina could see, even when she was a young child, that her parents' fears and worries were extreme, she couldn't help internalizing these fears herself. As an adult, she realized that these fears that she internalized kept her from getting very close to men.

She wanted very much to be different from her parents, but her parents' repeated warnings, from the time that Nina was very young, caused the internalization process to go very deep in her. So that, even though she wanted to be different, she continued to have these same fears.

Nina described her pattern in romantic relationships to be one where she started out really liking the man that she was seeing and wanting to spend time with him. But then her doubts and fears about herself and about this new man in her life would take over and she would find a way to end the relationship.

To start breaking this pattern, we worked gradually to disentangle Nina's positive feelings from her doubts and fears.

There is a technique in Somatic Experiencing called "uncoupling" where the Somatic Experiencing therapist helps the client to disentangle two or more emotions that have become over associated in a distorted way.

These over associations (or "over couplings", as they are called in Somatic Experiencing) can be very powerful and this can take time. Often, we don't even realize that these over couplings are a part of our emotional makeup until we start working on these feelings.

Very often, once a client has "uncoupled" a tangle of emotional distortions, they feel a sense of new energy and new possibilities opening up for them. In Somatic Experiencing this is often compared to having a bunch of colorful pipe cleaners that were tangled together and which are disentangled and separated.

After these feelings are uncoupled, clients can often see what belongs to them now and what are the old feelings from "back then" that no longer apply. It can be a very empowering experience.

Nina and I also worked on allowing herself to feel good about her accomplishments without allowing those old feelings that crept up on her ruin her healthy sense of pride and joy. This involved another uncoupling process to separate out healthy feelings of pride, which are normal, from feeling shame and fear about feeling "too good" about herself.

Whenever Nina was able to allow herself to feel good in session, we worked towards helping her to amplify those feelings in her body and allowing herself to bask and luxuriate in them so that she could re-establish a sense of joy, vigor, and healthy pride in herself.

The work was not easy for Nina but, over time, she began to see that she was opening up to new possibilities in her life. She was more open to allowing herself to take more emotional risks by opening up more to people, which would have been unthinkable for her before. She started dating again and when she felt her fear and self doubt beginning to get in the way, she used the resources that she developed in our therapy sessions to overcome them.

Her emotional range of resiliency continued to expand until she could feel a real sense of aliveness and joy that she had not felt in many years. She described it as feeling more like herself. She began to trust her judgment more with regard to choosing healthy relationships. She was more open to meeting and connecting with new people so she was no longer lonely. She also met the man that she eventually married.

Nina successfully completed therapy

By the time Nina successfully completed therapy, she almost looked like a different person. The worry, fear and doubt that had been etched in her face were gone. She had a sense of aliveness and vitality. She also allowed herself to take in the love from her husband that she needed and deserved and she was also able to allow herself to give love freely to him in return.

Getting Help in Therapy
Often, people are stuck in old patterns that keep their lives small and constricted. Their emotions are tamped down. These patterns rob their lives of aliveness and joy, but they don't realize it or, if they do, they don't know how to change it.

If you're aware that you have emotional patterns that are preventing you from living life fully, you owe it to yourself to break free from these patterns by getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who has experience working with these issues.

To overcome these patterns, my professional experience has been that mind-body oriented psychotherapy offers possibilities that regular talk therapy often doesn't offer.

As I mentioned earlier,I work in many different ways and I often combine different techniques, depending upon the needs of the client. Every client is unique and my work is collaborative, so that each treatment plan is a collaboration with the client.

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist in NYC.

I have helped many clients to overcome old emotional patterns so they can open their lives to new possibilities and a sense of joy and aliveness.

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.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

NIP Annual Conference: "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work"

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

I attended an intriguing annual conference at NIP (National Institute of Psychotherapies) called "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work" here in NYC. 

Their first speaker was the world-renown Dutch Jungian psychoanalyst, Robert Bosnak. Mr. Bosnak has developed a very exciting and innovative way of working with dreams that he calls Embodied Imagination.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak explained Embodied Imagination and then gave an amazing live presentation of his work. The woman who volunteered to present her dream was someone who Mr. Bosnak had worked with mostly through Skype, since she lives in NYC and he currently lives in California, for a short time, as preparation for the conference. He was not her primary therapist.

Borrowing from the early Greek healing arts involving healing incubation, where people who wanted healing went to the Temple of Aesklepius, prior to the conference, Mr. Bosnak asked this volunteer to focus every day on certain health symptoms that she was experiencing in order to "incubate" a healing dream.

As you may know, the early Greeks went to the Temple of Asklepius hoping that they would meet the healing god in their dreams so that they could be cured of their medical problems. In those days, people didn't think of their dreams as being symbolic--they believed that if they had a dream where they saw the healing god, Aesklepius, it was as real an experience as any waking experience.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak demonstrated his phenomenological technique of Embodied Imagination while he induced a hypnogogic state in the dream volunteer. (The hypnogogic state is the state between waking and sleeping.) His work is a very big departure from traditional or even contemporary psychoanalytic traditions of doing dream work.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

As he went over the dream with the dreamer, he asked her not only to embody her dream self in her imagination, but also to embody other people and inanimate objects in her dream. 

Rather than experience these people and objects as if they were parts of herself, as she might in parts work or in Gestalt therapy, Mr. Bosnak asked the dreamer to use her imagination to become each of these people and objects in the dream and related their experiences, including inanimate objects like a car.

Notwithstanding the fact that there were at least 300 psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the room, Mr. Bosnak and the dream volunteer did amazing work, which appeared to be healing for the particular type of medical problem that she was having. 

It is noteworthy that Mr. Bosnak didn't know anything about the dream beforehand. He was hearing it for the first time with the rest of us.

We could see how they both got to material in the dream that they probably would not have accessed if they approached the dream in the conventional manner. It was very exciting, to say the least, to observe this. For most of us in the room, it was a challenge and an invitation to consider how we work with dreams.

Mr. Bosnak has moved away from the conventional idea that dreams have a defensive structure. He also does not work with what is often described as manifest (what is obvious) and latent (what cannot be readily seen) content in his work with Embodied Imagination.

If you have been reading my blog, you are probably aware that I'm very interested in the mind-body connection in my work, so I'm always interested in hearing new techniques for working in this way. Some of Mr. Bosnak's methodology reminded me of Somatic Experiencing, which is a modality I already use in my psychotherapy private practice

Most people who are familiar with Jung's work know that he worked with what he called Active Imagination. He also used Active Imagination in his Red Book. However, Mr. Bosnak seems to have gone beyond Active Imagination.

Robert Bosnak has traveled all over the world, and he has witnessed many different ways of working with dreams phenomenologically, including working with dreams shamanically. He reminds us that how we perceive dreams is very much tied to our cultural understanding.

Just before going to sleep last night, I began to read Robert Bosnak's book, Embodiment - Creative Imagination in Medicine, Art and Travel. I got up to Page 5 when I dropped off to sleep and I had the following dream:

I'm talking to Mr. Bosnak about his method of working with dreams. We're sitting face-to-face at close range. I'm mostly listening to him very intensely and thinking about how I can use this method of doing dream work with my clients. As I take in this new way of working with dreams, I feel very excited and slightly frustrated. Then, I realize and think to myself, "Time is the key. He slows everything down and gives the work lots of time."

When I woke up, I wrote down this dream as well as several other dreams that I had last night.

After I wrote down my dreams, I picked up Mr. Bosnak's book, Embodiment, and began reading again. I was surprised and delighted to find that when I resumed reading and got to the next page, Page 6, he talks about time and the slowness of time when transitioning from the dreaming to the waking state. I felt as if Mr. Bosnak and I had an actual conversation about Embodied Imagination and the nature of time in this work, and here it was confirmed when I resumed reading his book.

It's a fallacy when some people say that they either don't dream or they rarely dream. Everyone dreams at least five dreams a night, but not everyone remembers their dreams.

Whether or not you remember your dreams has a lot to do with how you wake up. If you're someone who takes a while to transition from the sleep state to the waking state, transitioning slowly so that you still retain the feeling state that you were in while you were sleeping, you're more likely to remember your dreams. However, if you tend to wake up suddenly without making that slow transition, you're less likely to remember your dreams.

If you're interested in learning more about your dreams, which are often a rich source of information, I recommend that you keep a pad and pen by your bed. Having a strong intention and telling yourself that you want to remember your dreams before you go to sleep helps to give your unconscious the message that dreams are important to you.

When you wake up, rather than jumping out of bed, take a few moments to stay immersed in the dream state. Especially, do not change your position. So, for example, if you're lying on your left side, don't turn around right away. Remain like that for a few moments and allow the details of the dream to emerge.

Then, write down your dreams in the present tense as if you're still in the dream. Even if it's a fragment of a dream, write down whatever you remember. Usually, you'll find that, as you begin to remember your dreams from the night before, you'll remember them in reverse order, with the last dream first (the dream closest to waking up) and then the next to the last dream, and so on.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

Very often, if you write down your dreams, over time, you begin to see interesting synchronicities between your dreaming and waking states. I believe that this isn't as unusual as most people think and that, over time, most people can tap into this inner resource. I believe it's a natural ability that most of us have if we're willing to develop it.

Several years ago, when I was working on my dreams every day, I saw very interesting synchronicities. I also had precognitive dreams where I dreamt about certain things happening before they actually happened. I didn't have any earth-shattering premonitions about world events--they were mostly personal incidents in my life. My point is that I saw a connection between paying attention to my dreams and the ability to tap into an inner precognitive resource.

If you want to find out more about Robert Bosnak's method of Embodied Imagination and his way of working with dreams, you can visit the website for the Embodied Imagination Institute: www.cyberdreamwork.com. You can also read his book, Embodiment, which is written in an accessible way.

Mr. Bosnak also heads up the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary, and you can visit their website at: www.sbhsanctuary.com.

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

I work with individual adults and coupls.

I have been fascinated by dreams since I was a teenager and I enjoy doing dream work with my clients. Dream work often helps clients to gain a perspective of themselves and others that they wouldn't ordinarily otherwise have access to in other ways. 

I also enjoy using clinical hypnosis to re-enter the dream state, and I have found this to be very useful to clients.

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

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

Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships

In my prior two blog posts, I provided some background information about life stages in mother-daughter relationships and I also discussed how early infant bonding and attachment affect mother-daughter relationships: Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships and Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding. 

Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships

In this blog post, I will discuss how mother-daughter relationships can be healed using a composite vignette, which does not represent any one particular case with no identifying information.

Clinical Vignette

The following vignette is based on a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed to protect confidentiality:

Ellen:
Ellen was a married woman in her early 50s when she first came to see me. She came because she and her adult daughter, Sandy, had difficulties in their mother-daughter relationship since Sandy was an infant. Ellen felt very sad and frustrated that she and Sandy never had a good relationship, and she felt that they were both stuck in a dysfunctional pattern or relating that neither of them knew how to change. Sandy was her only child, and Ellen wanted very much to heal their relationship.

Ellen had given birth to Sandy when Ellen was 18. She hid the pregnancy from her family through most of her pregnancy because she was ashamed and afraid to tell her parents. By her eighth month, she could no longer hide the pregnancy, despite wearing baggy clothes, and she had to tell her parents that she was pregnant. 

Both of her parents were very upset, and they wanted to confront the boy's parents, but Ellen refused to tell them who the father was. She told me that the father was a young man in his early 20s who was visiting NYC, on leave from the Army, and he left for his home town and never knew about her pregnancy.

Ellen's parents decided that they would raise the baby and, Ellen, who dropped out of school in her eighth month, could focus on getting her GED and going to college. She described this time in her life as being very tumultuous. She was aware that her parents were very disappointed in her and they felt that she had "ruined" her life with this pregnancy.

Since all of her parents' relatives lived on the West Coast, Ellen's parents told them that the baby was Ellen's mother's and that she had kept the pregnancy secret because she wasn't sure she would be able to carry the baby to term due to her age. This was the first secret related to Sandy's birth.

When Sandy was born, Ellen's mother took over. Her mother would hardly allow Ellen to hold the baby and she didn't allow her to breast feed the baby. Ellen said that when Sandy was born, she looked upon her more as a doll than as a live baby. Ellen said she felt a deep shame about having a baby out of wedlock, and it was easier for her to go along with her parents' lies than to deal with the truth.

Before she went away to college, Ellen said she remembered many nights when Sandy cried for hours by herself by herself in her crib. Ellen's mother didn't believe in picking up Sandy when Sandy was in distress because she thought that this would spoil her. Her mother also wouldn't allow Ellen to go to her. So, most nights, Sandy cried until she was exhausted without anyone to comfort her. Ellen said this was excruciating for her, and she was glad to go away to college so she didn't have to hear Sandy cry any more.

While she was in college, Ellen visited home occasionally on weekends. She remembers thinking that Sandy was a sullen, irritable, anxious child. Sandy's basic needs (in terms of being feed, bathed and clothed) were taken of, according to Ellen, but Ellen's parents didn't spend much time talking to Sandy or playing with her. 

 She was left in the crib most of the day by herself. Ellen said that her parents were never overly affectionate people, but their behavior was in stark contrast to how they behaved with her when she was younger. She felt that they were not emotionally prepared to take care of Sandy, and they resented it.

According to Ellen, Sandy grew up thinking that Ellen was her older sister. By the time Sandy was old enough to walk and talk, Ellen said she had also convinced herself of this deception too because it was easier for her to live with. She described the difficulties that Sandy had in school. Although she was bright, Sandy had difficulty making friends with other children and she didn't relate well to her teachers.

After Sandy was evaluated and it was determined that she didn't need a medical intervention, the school recommended counseling. Ellen's parents were opposed to counseling, especially after they heard that the whole family had to be involved in the counseling sessions, so they refused at first. 

 But the school administration continued to pressure them and warned that they would contact the Bureau of Child Welfare if they didn't comply with their recommendations, and Sandy might be taken away from them. The principal felt that Sandy was having basic problems relating interpersonally, and if she didn't get help, this could be a lifelong problem for her. So, Ellen's parents relented very reluctantly.

During family counseling, Ellen's parents finally revealed their secret--that Ellen was really Sandy's mother. Ellen said that her mother broke down one day and told the family therapist the truth. 

 The family therapist helped the family to get through this very difficult time. She told Ellen and her parents that Sandy needed to be told. Ellen and her parents struggled with this for a few months but, with the family therapist's help, they prepared themselves to talk to Sandy in session to tell her, in a way that a child might understand, that Ellen was her real mother.

Ellen told me that she felt retraumatized when she and her parents had to reveal the truth to Sandy. Until then, she had gone into a sort of state of denial about being Sandy's mother, and she felt like she was being confronted with it all over again.

According to Ellen, after she was told, Sandy became very angry and she began acting out in school and at home. She stopped talking to Ellen and she vacillated between clinging to Ellen's mother and pushing her away. She behaved in much the same way with Ellen's father. 

During those sessions when Sandy was told the truth about Ellen being her real mother, she was also told that her father lived far away and no one had contact with him. 

Over and over again, the family tried to reassure her that she was much loved by them (even if Ellen's parents had difficulty showing it), but Sandy's school work suffered. Her therapy sessions were increased to three times a week so the family therapist was able to help her get through this crisis.

Soon after that, Ellen moved out of the household to get her own apartment with roommates, and she only went home occasionally to visit her family. She said she made efforts over the years to reconcile with Sandy, but Sandy was very resistant to this. Sandy completed high school and she went on to college. 

She made a few close friends, but she had a lot of problems in her relationships with young men. She tended to choose men who were emotionally unavailable and she was constantly trying to win their affection. According to Ellen, these relationships usually ended in the young men abandoning Sandy.

By now, Sandy was in her mid-30s. As a college graduate, she was underemployed as an office clerk, and she had a succession of roommates over the years. She had not been in a relationship for several years. 

Ellen called Sandy about once every couple of weeks to find out how she was doing, but she said, most of the time, she got Sandy's answering machine and Sandy rarely returned her calls. Whatever she knew about Sandy, she knew from a cousin who moved to NY and who befriended Sandy.

In the early stage of our work together, I helped Ellen to understand what might have gone wrong with Sandy in the early attachment phase when she was an infant. In order for babies to learn how to bond and develop a secure attachment to their primary caregiver (in this case, Ellen's mother), they need to have consist nurturing and care.

Based on Ellen's description of her mother's interactions with Sandy as an infant, it appeared that Sandy's basic needs were taken care of, but there wasn't a lot of nurturing or affection. As a result, Sandy grew up to feel insecure and had difficulties forming relationships. 

I assured Ellen that this didn't mean that Sandy was doomed to continue in this way, but she had to be willing to get psychological help. 

 I told her that the family therapy was probably helpful to her when Sandy was younger, but it seemed, based on Ellen's account, that Sandy probably had a lot of unspoken anger, hurt and resentment towards her. If they were going to heal their relationship, Ellen would have to learn to forgive herself and make amends with Sandy. Sandy would also have to be willing to reconcile.

Our early work together involved helping Ellen to develop emotional resources for herself. Her husband was her main source of external support. She also had supportive, close friends. 

During this period of our work, Ellen grieved for the loss that she felt for not being closer to Sandy when she was a baby. 

She felt that she really missed out on having these early years with her daughter. Ellen also learned to be compassionate with the teenage part of herself who was obviously not equipped on any level to take care of an infant and who had no choice but to go along with her parents' wishes with regard to Sandy.

When she felt ready, she tried to contact Sandy by phone to ask to see her and talk to her, but
Sandy remained unresponsive to her. So, Ellen wrote Sandy a letter in which she expressed her deep sorrow and regret for what happened between them. She asked Sandy to forgive her and told her that she hoped they could develop a better relationship.

Much to Ellen's surprise, Sandy agreed to come in for a therapy session to meet with Ellen and me. It was a very emotional session with lots of anger and tears on Sandy's part and much anguish and pain for Ellen. Sandy agreed to come back for another session a week later. 

Since Ellen had no expectations of how the session would go, she was able to come into her next session with me and talk about how she felt. Even though it was very painful to hear Sandy's anger and pain, Ellen felt that, at least, they were talking in an honest way and the lines of communication were finally open. But she also knew that she could not force Sandy to have a mother-daughter relationship if she was not open to it. At that point, Sandy seemed highly ambivalent.

Ellen and Sandy met with me for several months. It was very rocky at first, but I saw some hope in that they both wanted to continue the process. During our sessions, Sandy developed a psychological curiosity about her own emotional process, and she also began her own individual sessions with a psychotherapist.

Gradually, Ellen and Sandy began to make some progress. 

Just like most psychological changes, it was not a steady line of progress. It was more like two steps forward and one step backwards, but it was progress nonetheless. They began going for coffee after their sessions and, after a while, they were having dinner together. 

Although Sandy was guarded and very cautious at first about opening up, she also seemed, underneath it all, to have a real need for the compassionate, nurturing mother that she never had. By now, Ellen's parents were in their mid-70s and they never really bonded with Sandy.

With Sandy's consent, I also maintained contact with her individual therapist. Her therapist reported that Sandy had formed a rapport with her, and she was making slow, steady progress in treatment. She was beginning to let go of some of her fears about starting to go out with men again, and she eventually met a man that she really liked and who was very interested in her, and emotionally available.

When there is this type of emotional rupture in the mother-daughter relationship, the work tends to be slow. Healing doesn't happen over night, if it happens at all. Trust must be regained over time for both the mother and the daughter.

For mothers and daughters to make amends in these types of situations, there usually needs to be an overarching motivation to transcend their differences. A therapist never knows in advance how this will go in the treatment. 

Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships

Fortunately, for Ellen and Sandy, they were eventually able to develop a belated mother-daughter relationship that they could both feel comfortable with over time. There was nothing magical about it--it involved a lot of sustained, hard work on both of their parts and a willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

Sandy also tracked down her father who, at that point, was divorced with adult children. After the initial shock of hearing that he had a daughter that he never knew about, he wanted to meet her. Over time, Sandy began taking steps to develop a belated relationship with her biological father.

Conclusion
I hear from both mothers and daughters in this type and other types of relationships. Sometimes, they decide to come in after many years of estrangement. 

Often, mothers and daughters, who might have been reluctant to heal their relationship earlier on, will have a change of heart as the mother ages. Often, they see it as their last chance to reconcile before the mother becomes too frail or before she dies. Other times, as daughters become mothers themselves, they develop more compassion and empathy for what their own mothers might have gone through with them.

There are times when mothers or daughters cannot heal their relationship for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, one or the other of them is not willing or able. Other times, one of them is no longer alive and so the person remaining has to heal her own internal mother-daughter relationship on their own in therapy.

At times, whatever occurred in the mother-daughter relationship might have been so abusive that the relationship is just still too toxic to heal, especially if the mother is unable to own up to the abuse (if she was the abuser) or unable to accept that abuse occurred (if the abuser was someone else). 

Often, these are instances where there was physical and/or sexual abuse that remains unacknowledged and unresolved. At those times, you might need help to overcome the trauma of what occurred without involving the other person.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I've mentioned in prior blog posts, the mother-daughter relationship is the most intense family of origin relationship. This can make it the most rewarding as well as the most painful relationship.

If you and your mother or daughter are having problems healing your relationship on your own, you might consider getting professional help to assist you with this process, whether you decide to do this on your own or with your mother or daughter.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist and EMDR therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to work through mother-daughter issues as well as other family of origin problems so that they can lead meaningful and 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.

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

In my prior blog post, I discussed Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships from infancy to middle age for daughters and later years for mothers:  Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships. In today's blog post, I'll focus on the early stage of bonding between mothers and daughters.

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

Why is Early Bonding Important?
First, let me say that bonding between infants and parents is extremely important for the infant to grow up to be a healthy, well-related adult.

Even though I'm focusing on mothers and daughters in this blog post, it's important to understand that both parents need to bond with their babies, whether the babies are girls or boys. So, even though the focus is on mothers and daughters, it's understood that fathers need to bond with their children as well.

Bonding between mothers and infants is an intense attachment. When bonding is going well, not only is it gratifying to both mother and infant, but the infant begins to learn in her first intense relationship how to relate.

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

If the mother is responsive to the baby, all other things being equal, the baby will usually grow up with a sense of security and positive self esteem. How the mother responds to the baby affects the baby's social and cognitive development.

Bonding is a process that takes place over time. It doesn't have to be perfect--it just needs to be good enough.

Often, bonding takes place, without the mother even necessarily being aware of it, through the normal caregiving responses that she performs for the baby if the mother is also emotionally attuned and related to the baby.

An example of this is when a mother is changing a baby's diaper and she's talking lovingly to the baby at the same time. The baby often responds by smiling and cooing, which is gratifying to the mother, who responds even more lovingly to the baby. Under ordinary circumstances, this is a natural part of the mother-infant bonding process.

Babies respond to touching (skin-to-skin contact), which they find soothing. They also respond to their mother's voice and the mother's scent. Eye-to-eye contact, where the mother mirrors the baby's expressions and the baby attempts, even at an early age, to mimic the mother's expressions, is a very important aspect of bonding.

Breast feeding is another bonding experience between the mother and infant, as the infant learns to associate the mother with comfort, warmth, love and sustenance. All of these examples are powerful ways for mothers and infants to bond.

Secure and Insecure Attachment:
Most of the time, bonding is a pleasurable experience for mother and infant, and it tends to go well. But there are times when there are problems with bonding for a variety of reasons: mothers might be suffering with fatigue, depressive disorder, postpartum depression, medical issues or other problems that get in the way of their bonding with their infants.

 If there are problems during birth, babies might need to placed in intensive care. Under those circumstances, some mothers are put off by all of the equipment, and if they don't take the time and effort to bond, there can be serious consequences for the baby as well as their primary and other relationships later on.

In addition, aside from problems that the mother might have, the baby's temprement might affect the bonding process.

Attachment Theory:
In this blog post, there won't be time or space to go into all of the complexities of attachment theory. However, some basic concepts can be helpful in our discussion.

When we refer to attachment, we're referring to the quality of the bond between the infant and the caregiver.

Attachment theory was originally developed by John Bowlby (1907-1990), British psychiatrist, psychologist and psychoanalyst. His work was enhanced by his American student and eventual colleague, Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999) who observed mother-infant interactions in her infant research. Through her research, she identified four different types of attachment: secure, avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized.

Before going describing the different types of attachment, I want to stress that just because an infant demonstrates a particular type of attachment, which might not be secure attachment, does not mean that this can never change. Scientists have discovered the remarkable plasticity of the brain in terms of people being able to make significant behavioral changes, even in old age.

Based on Ms. Ainsworth's research, secure attachment is optimal. When there is secure attachment, caregivers respond consistently and lovingly to the infants' needs most of the time. Studies have shown that about 65% of infants develop secure attachment.

Avoidant attachment in babies often occurs where the primary caregivers show little or no response to the babies' distress. These caregivers often discourage crying and want their babies to be emotionally "independent" beyond the babies' capacity. Due to these caregivers' lack of responsiveness, these babies often avoid emotional attachments and connections.

When babies show ambivalent/resistant attachment, the primary caregivers are often inconsistent, vacillating between being emotionally responsive and being neglectful or abusive. These babies are often insecure because they cannot rely on their primary caregivers.

Disorganized attachment usually occurs when primary caregivers are too intrusive or abusive with the infant. These infants are traumatized.

Consequences of Secure and Insecure Attachments:
Once again, I want to stress that an insecure attachment does not necessarily become that adult's inevitable destiny. So, what I'm about to say are generalizations about what has been found in research.

When bonding goes fairly well, as it does with 65% of infants, all other things being equal, these infants tend to grow up as secure adults. Of course, there are many other factors to take into account besides attachment, but for the sake of simplicity and brevity, let's just look at attachment and assume that everything else has gone reasonably well for these infants who grow up to be adults.

Generally, these adults, who experience secure attachment with their primary caregivers, tend to be able to trust in their adult relationships. They usually have healthy self esteem; they're empathetic towards others; they feel deserving of love, and they're able to form healthy adult relationships.

Infants who grow up with insecure attachment often have difficulty trusting. Self esteem is often impaired. They might also have a hard time understanding and being empathetic towards others. In addition, they often have difficulties forming healthy adult relationships.

We can already anticipate what the challenges might be in the mother-daughter relationships as well as other adults relationships for daughters who have developed insecure attachments as infants.

Getting Help in Therapy
These problems can be overcome and repaired in psychotherapy. Many people who didn't have secure attachment as infants overcome this problem and are able to form healthy adults relationships. I will explore this as well as the implications for mother-daughter relationships in future blog posts.

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

I have helped many clients to overcome problems in mother-daughter relationships.

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.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

In a prior blog post, I wrote about Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships. That blog post presented the complex nature of mother-daughter relationships when there are problems with enmeshment. At this point, I would like to return to the topic of mother-daughter relationships to step back and look at these relationships over the course of the various life stages that mothers and daughters go through.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

Mother-Daughter Relationships - Early Bonding:
There is no doubt that, in general, fathers are more involved with their children than they were a generation ago, which is encouraging. But the primary parental relationship for most girls and women remains the mother-daughter relationship.

During the 1940s and earlier, people believed that babies were born as blank screens, but we now know that from early infancy we're biologically "hard wired" for attachment. That means that infants seek warmth and comfort from Day One: the warmth and scent of her mother's skin, the comfort of her mother's breast, and the sound of her mother's voice. When bonding goes well between mother and infant, the baby feels a secure attachment to her mother. This secure attachment between mother and child makes it more likely, all other things being equal, that the child will develop healthy relationships later on in life.

Under optimal conditions during infancy, the baby and mother are also bonded through the mother's loving gaze. The baby sees herself in the mother's eyes and feels the mother's love. The mother, in turn, sees how comforted the baby feels being mirrored in the mother's eyes and this is comforting to the mother as well. This interaction provides a positive feedback loop between mother and child and reinforces this bond.

Mother and Daughter Relationships - From Early Years (18 months to age 5):
At around the age of 18-24 months, babies begin to learn to separate from their mothers for short periods of time. Margaret Mahler referred to the "separation/individuation" phase when, under optimal circumstances, babies learn that their mothers continue to exist even when they are out of sight. This is also the time when babies begin to assert some of their autonomy by saying, "No!" If the mother is patient and recognizes this as a normal stage of development, babies gradually outgrow this sometimes difficult stage.

From about the age of four or five, most daughters idealize their mothers. They often find their mothers to be attractive and glamorous. At this stage, many girls want to mimic their mothers by putting on the their mothers' makeup or playing dress-up with "mommy's clothes." They often think of their mothers as beautiful and all-knowing.

Some daughters have a hard time separating from their mothers when it's time to start school (this occurs with sons as well sometimes). It's their first time away from the security they feel with their mother to be in a new and strange environment with a stranger (the teacher) who is now in charge. Most of the time, young girls are able to make this adjustment, and the mother remains their primary attachment figure.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - During the Daughter's Adolescence:
While mothers are idealized when children are four or five years old, teenagers often see their mothers as being old fashioned or "out of it." This is another stage where children are learning to separate themselves emotionally from their mothers.

This stage can be bewildering to mothers who often say, "What happened to my relationship with my daughter?" This is a time when teens bond with their peer group, and a friend's advice or opinion is often valued more than a mother's.

Tension and conflict during this period of time can be managed if both mothers and daughters accept and respect each other rather than viewing each other as the enemy. Since they're the adults, mothers have a greater onus for being understanding and fostering good relationships with their daughters. However, daughters must also learn to be open and respectful towards their mothers. Mothers need to learn to allow their daughters an age-appropriate degree of autonomy, but mothers must also provide guidance and support while setting boundaries for their daughters. Daughters will often test these boundaries, but this is also a normal part of adolescence.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - Daughters in Their 20s and 30s:
During their 20s, daughters are no longer teenagers, but some of them, depending upon their level of maturity, might not feel like adults yet. Prior to the 1990s, many daughters were able to go out on their own and live independently after college because apartments were more affordable. Now, with fewer rent stabilized and moderate income housing, many daughters continue to live at home for longer periods of time, depending upon their parents for longer as compared to prior generations.

During their 20s, many daughters often realize that their mothers are fallible and they don't always have all of the answers. During this period, many of them are being challenged by career choices and choosing a mate. Often, they're learning how to distinguish themselves from their mothers while attempting to maintain a bond with them.

During their 30s, many daughters are starting to come into their own with regard to career and their own family. Under ideal circumstances, they are less emotionally and financially dependent on their mothers. They often realize that their ideas differ from their mothers with regard to certain values. At this point, if they are in committed relationships with a significant others, under optimal circumstances, daughters are learning to put their partners first. This can create tension in the mother-daughter relationship, unless mothers understand that this is a normal part of development.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - 40s and Beyond:
Although there are many sons who help to take care of their elderly mothers, traditionally, for better or worse, it has been the daughter's responsibility to take care of elderly parents. For many women, who are "sandwiched" between their own families and their parents, this can be very challenging. During this time, daughters and mothers start to come to terms with the fact that mothers are aging and have more years behind them than ahead. How well they deal with this is often dependent upon how well their relationship has developed until this point.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

This is also often a time when mothers and daughters let go of old resentments in light of the fact that mothers are elderly at this point and time might be short for reconciliation. Under most circumstances, daughters often develop a different perspective of what's important, especially if they now have their own children and they understand better what their mothers went through with them.

In future blog posts, I will continue to explore mother-daughter relationships.

About Me
I am a New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with individuals and couples.

As a psychotherapist, I have helped many mothers and daughters, individually and together, to improve their relationships.

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 regular business hours or email me.