Relationships: Confusing Sexual Attraction with Love

Confusing Sexual Attraction with Love
During the early stage of a romantic relationship, many people confuse sexual attraction for being in love. Sexual attraction can be so strong during the initial part of a dating relationship that you can get swept away by the power of these feelings and believe yourself to be in love. This is certainly not to say that you can't be both sexually attracted and also genuinely love someone. But the point is that, whereas sexual attraction can occur in a second, mature love develops over time.

Confusing Sexual Attraction With Love

Starting a Relationship Based Only on Sexual Attraction

Often, people start a relationship based on the heady feelings of sexual attraction--believing that they love each other.

This isn't a solid foundation for a relationship. When the sexual passion begins to wear off a little, these people often find they either have little in common or that their feelings aren't strong enough to sustain the inevitable ups and downs of a mature relationship.

Learning to Distinguish Between Love and Lust

It takes time to get to know one another. I often tell individual clients and couples that it can take at least two years of dating to get to know each other well enough to know if you're compatible enough to be in a relationship.

It's right around that time that the initial heady, sexual attraction decreases somewhat (as compared to the initial passion). So, being aware of this, it makes sense to take your time to get to know one another.  Over time, you learn to distinguish what might only be lust from love.

This helps you to avoid making life plans with someone you don't really love and the disappointment you might feel when the sexual attraction begins to wane.

Sexual attractions can be fun. Often, love can develop from these sexual attractions. We can't always know in advance when this will occur.

There are also many couples who develop deep feelings of mature love who also maintain the passion in their relationships. This is a wonderful thing! Many other couples need to make more of an effort to maintain that sexual passion, but that's a subject for another blog post.

Be Aware, Be Patient, Allow Things to Unfold and Develop 

The point is that, early on, we want to be aware that strong feelings for someone at the beginning are not the basis for a committed relationship. Be patient and allow things to develop and unfold before making a commitment. In the long run, you'll be glad that you took your time.

About Me
I'm a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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

Perfection vs "Good Enough"

Are you a perfectionist? Do you stress yourself out trying to do things perfectly? Do you feel like you've "failed" unless the things you do are 100% what you think they should be? 

Perfectionism

Are you imposing these perfectionist standards on your loved ones? 

If you've said "yes" to these questions, it would probably be helpful for you to stop and consider what's driving you to have such perfectionistic standards for yourself and others before you exhaust yourself and alienate your loved ones.

What's Causing You to Strive for Perfection?

If you tend to be a perfectionist, you might want to stop and ask yourself what's causing you to strive for such unrealistic standards. 

For some people, a deep sense of inadequacy can drive them relentlessly to push for higher and higher standards--no matter what the issue is or the cost.

"Good Enough" Can Be More than Adequate

But in certain situations "good enough" is more than adequate without driving yourself crazy. Of course, everyone has their own ideas about what's "good enough."

If you're a perfectionist, only perfection might be "good enough." When you're trying to change this pattern, it will take a lot of practice and, possibly, a reality check from people you trust to let you know if you're still pushing yourself for perfection.

Hiding Behind Perfectionism

Often, a need to be "perfect" hides a sense of "I'm not good enough."

Once you stop trying to be perfect, some of these feelings of inadequacy might come to the surface. This is usually difficult to overcome on your own.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're struggling with being a perfectionist, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you overcome these deep seated issues.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT,  Somatic Experiencing and Sex 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 (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my article:  Overcoming Perfectionism

Mindful Eating

The holiday season can be a challenging time for managing stress and overeating. In this blog post, I'll be focusing on how to eat mindfully and avoid overeating.

Why Do We Overeat During the Holidays?
One of the reasons that we tend to overeat during the holidays is that there's so often much more food around us during this time. If we work in an office, there are office parties with cakes, cookies, chips and many other types of high caloric foods. Family gatherings also have many of the same types of calorie-laden foods. It's so easy to fill up our plates and gorge ourselves on heaps of food without even realizing.

Mindful Eating, Instead of Overeating, During the Holidays

Whether we're stuffing ourselves out of anxiety, loneliness or other uncomfortable emotions or we're distracted by our conversations with others, it's very easy to overeat without realizing it. Considering that we can often attend several parties, dinners or other social gatherings over the holidays, we can end up gaining a lot of weight around the holidays.

So what's the answer? Should we avoid all social gatherings until the holidays are over? Should we starve ourselves and avoid eating until the holidays are over? Clearly, these aren't practical strategies. So what should we do? One viable strategy is to eat mindfully.

What is "Mindful Eating"?
What do we mean by "mindful eating"? Well, mindful eating means eating with awareness. Rather than being distracted while we eat or zoned out, we deliberately choose what and how much we're eating and thoroughly enjoy it. Rather than completely depriving ourselves, which often leads to overeating when we feel too deprived, we carefully choose our food, appreciating the color, texture, aroma, and all the other sensual aspects of the food. When we place the food in our mouths, we enjoy the taste and feel of the food, slowing down to thoroughly appreciate everything about it.

Remember the Meaning of the Holidays
The other factor to keep in mind is that the holidays are about more than food and overeating. If we're fortunate, the holidays are about getting together with loved ones, remembering those who are less fortunate than ourselves and the spiritual significance of the holidays if that's meaningful to you.

So, rather than focusing on food, it's more meaningful to focus on the meaning of the particular holiday. Even if you're alone for the holidays and you're not part of an organized religion, you can have a meaningful experience for yourself and make the holiday brighter for others by volunteering your time over the holidays.

This could mean joining a carolling group at a local hospital, serving food at a local homeless drop-in center, visiting a home bound elderly neighbor, or countless other volunteer activities that are available to you over the holidays and throughout the year. Participating in any of these activities has the potential to expand ourawareness of the meaning of the holidays.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist and Somatic Experiencing therapist. As part of my therapeutic work with individuals and couples, I use mindfulness techniques.

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: Knowing When to Stay and When to Go

Knowing when to stay and try to work things out versus when to end a relationship can be challenging, especially when there have been longstanding problems. Often, people feel they've invested so much in the relationship that they want to do everything they can before giving up. But, for many of these relationships, both people feel they've exhausted their internal resources and they don't know what to do to make things better. They might flounder for months or years in an emotional stalemate.

Relationships: When to Stay and When to Go

Staying for the Sake of the Children?
Many people decide that even though the relationship no longer works for either of them, they will stay together for the sake of the children. This rarely works. I've had many adults clients tell me in their psychotherapy sessions that they wish their parents had divorced rather than staying together for the sake of the family. Usually, they say that they and their siblings sensed that something was wrong between their parents, even though the parents thought they were hiding it well. This creates a great deal of tension in the household with the parents attempting to keep their problems a secret and the children feeling confused about what they're sensing.

Relationships: When to Go and When to Leave.  Staying Together for the Children?

Wanting to Escape When Things Get Tough
There are those people who tend to want to escape from relationships when things get rough. Often, they haven't learned the necessary skills to stick with it and work through normal, everyday problems. Most of the time, these people didn't grow up in families where they saw good communication and problem solving modeled so they're at loss about what to do.

Relationships: When to Stay and When to Leave.  Escaping When Things Get Tough

Staying Because You're Afraid of Being Alone
Other people are on the other end of the spectrum: They don't know when the relationship has run its course. They keep trying to salvage the relationship, even when nothing works any more. In some cases, they fear being alone. In other cases, they don't want to feel they've "failed" in their relationship. There can be so many reasons.

When to Stay and When to Go.  Staying Because You're Afraid of Being Alone

Doing Some Soul Searching
Knowing when to stay or when to go can be daunting. It can take a lot of soul searching on your part as well as open and honest communication between you and your partner.

When to Stay and When to Go.  Doing Some Soul Searching

Needless to say, if you're going to try to work things out, both people must be willing to make the effort.

Getting Help
When you and your partner aren't sure if the relationship can be salvaged, you could benefit from seeing a couples counselor. An experienced couples counselor, who is objective, can help you and your partner sort through the current emotional stalemate to either work things out or end the relationship in an amicable way.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist who sees 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 212 726-1006.

Relationships: Having the Courage to Admit When You Made a Mistake

Many relationships would benefit if one or both people could admit that they made a mistake, make amends for the mistake, and then move on. Instead too many couples end up having long drawn out arguments where nothing gets resolved and both people end up feeling resentful. These are the kind of arguments that tend to erode relationships and often lead to their demise.

Relationships: The Courage to Admit When You've Made a Mistake

Many people feel that to admit a mistake is a sign of weakness. This might be due to messages they received from their family when they were growing up. But, in fact, to be able to admit you're wrong or, at least, that you had a part in creating the problem takes strength and a certain amount of faith that your spouse or partner will forgive you.

Making Amends

We all make mistakes at one time or another. That's what makes us human. Rather than get caught up in an endless cycle of making excuses or deflecting the blame, it's better for you and your relationship to acknowledge your error, apologize, and make amends.

Avoiding Power Struggles

When you're able to admit that you've made a mistake, you also make it easier for your partner to do the same. Rather than getting into power struggles, you can both rely on the sense of integrity that you each feel towards each other and the relationship to carry you through the difficulties that come in any relationship.

Getting Help

If you and your spouse have gotten to the point where you can no longer resolve arguments on your own, you might benefit from couples counseling. An experienced couples counselor can help you to improve communication between you and restore a healthier dynamic in your relationship.

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

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: When Expressing Your Feelings Turns into Verbal Abuse

Often couples who have problems communicating with each other make the mistake of believing that expressing their feelings means they can say whatever they want, in whatever tone or volume all in the name of "being honest." 

Relationships: When Expressing Your Feelings Turns into Verbal Abuse

This distortion in reasoning often leads to an escalation in arguments and more misunderstandings.

Making Excuses for Verbal Abuse

As a psychotherapist and couples counselor in NYC, have heard people say over and over again, "I was just expressing my feelings" as a way to rationalize abusive verbal behavior. Often, the underlying intent of this "honesty", whether the person realizes it or not, is to hurt or one-up the other person.

Relationships: When Expressing Your Feelings Turns Into Verbal Abuse

Stop and Think Before You Speak

If you stop to think about what you're about to say before you say it, you can catch yourself before you become mean spirited with your spouse or partner.

There's no reason for honesty to come with a sledge hammer. It's often better to take the time to cool down and come back to the discussion later rather than saying something rash in the heat of the moment.

Then, you can focus on what you're really trying to communicate rather than getting side tracked because you're too angry to think straight.

Getting Help

Learning effective communication skills with your spouse or partner takes practice. If you find yourself falling into the same pitfalls, you might benefit from couples counseling.

I am a licensed NYC 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 212 726-1006 or email me: josephineolivia@aol.com.

Home for the Holidays

Being with family for the holidays can be challenging for many people. We see images of happy families in ads, TV programs, and movies, which can leave us feeling that something is wrong with us or our families if our family doesn't measure up to these happy images. However, the holidays can be very stressful, especially if we have unrealistic expectations of our families or ourselves.

Home for the Holidays

Rather than putting unnecessary pressure on yourself and your family, here are a few tips to help you during these holiday get togethers:

• Try to keep the day light. Steer clear of topics that might be contentious or that could create tension. This is not the time to debate politics if you know the discussion will become heated.

• Try to have reasonable expectations of friends and family. If Uncle Bob tends to be grouchy at family gatherings, there's no reason to expect that his personality will change this year.

• Watch your alcohol intake. Alcohol tends to amplify emotions and if you drink excessively, you might find yourself saying and doing things at the family gathering that you might regret.

• Don't take the bait if a relative becomes difficult. Try not to personalize his or her behavior.

• Plan in advance.  If you know in advance that a family gathering will be difficult, "book end" the visit by planning in advance to talk to a trusted friend or loved one before and after the visit so you feel supported.

• Do keep in mind the meaning of the holiday. So, for instance, Thanksgiving is a day to acknowledge all that we have to be grateful for.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I work with individuals and couples.

I work with individual adults and couples.

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

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