Feeling Stuck in the Middle: What to Do If Your Spouse and Your Parents Don't Get Along

One of the most challenging problems that you can face as a married person is when your spouse and your parents don't get along. This situation puts you in a very awkward position, especially if you're close to your parents and you really love your spouse. You're caught in the middle between them. 

Your Spouse and Parents Don't Get Along

It can be very hard to understand why, if your spouse loves you and your parents love you, they can't get along.  This can place a strain on your marriage and on your relationship with your parents.  Holidays, birthdays, the birth of a child, and family visits can become very stressful for you and everyone involved.  So how you deal with this and maintain your sanity?

First, as much as you can, step back and try to be objective, as if you were a disinterested person observing this situation. 

Are there really clear cut reasons why there's animosity? For instance, do your parents dislike your spouse because he or she is mistreating you?

If your daughter or son were in a similar relationship, would you feel the same way? 

Alternatively, are your parents being unreasonable or are they being too intrusive or overstepping boundaries in your relationship, which is stable and healthy?

These can be difficult questions to ask, especially since there might be things that you don't want to see about your spouse or your parents.

Recognizing that this is a common problem can help you when you feel alone, desperate, and unsure of what to do. 

Whenever two or more people get together, there's the potential for personality conflicts. Just because you love your parents and you love your spouse doesn't mean they'll necessarily love each other.

Obviously, one blog post can't address every possible scenario or permutation of this type of problem, but let's take a look at one possible scenario, which is a composite of many accounts with all identifying information changed:

Lorna:

Lorna was in her early 30s when she and Tom got married. They met through friends, and dated for a couple of years before they decided to get married. They were very in love. Lorna had never met a man who was so kind and considerate of her. They had similar values and they wanted similar things in life.

Overall, they were very happy together. But the one big stressor in their lives was that Lorna's parents disapproved of Tom because he was raised in a different religion. Before they even met Tom, when Lorna talked to them about Tom and they found out he was not raised in their religion, they were upset. Although Lorna had anticipated that they might have concerns, she was surprised by their reaction, especially since neither Lorna, her parents or Tom were active participants in their religions.

Lorna was very close to her parents, and she wanted them to like Tom. Before Lorna and Tom got married, it took a while before her parents agreed to meet him. Then, they were cool and standoffish with him, which hurt Lorna and angered Tom. She hoped that once her parents met Tom, they'd let go of their misgivings and embrace him, as Tom's parents embraced her. But it was a strange and awkward dinner at the restaurant, and her parents made an excuse to leave before dessert, leaving no doubt about how they felt.

After that, it was an uphill battle. When Lorna told her parents that she and Tom were getting married in a civil, non-religious ceremony, at first, her parents refused to come, which upset Lorna very much. It also put a strain on her relationship with Tom and led to arguments when she asked him to consider converting to her religion so they could make peace with her family. This made no sense to Tom, since neither he nor Lorna were spiritual people, and he refused to do it.

Two months before the wedding, Lorna's parents relented and, with heavy hearts, they agreed to come to the wedding. After all, Lorna was their only child. But they let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that they felt Lorna was making a big mistake by marrying outside of her faith, and nothing Lorna could say or do would change their minds.

Fast forward a couple of years: Lorna and Tom moved out of state because of their careers. Lorna had just given birth to their first child, a healthy baby boy, and Lorna's parents were coming to visit. The old issue about religion came up again, as Lorna's parents pressed her as to which religion, if any, Lorna and Tom planned to choose for their child.

Lorna dreaded talking to her parents about this, especially since it wasn't important to her or Tom. Once again, it created tension between Lorna and Tom. 

She tried to convince him, once again, to convert and to raise the baby in her parents' religion. But Tom didn't agree, and he was frustrated that Lorna still couldn't stand up to her parents. And this is what brought Tom and Lorna into marriage counseling. S

he felt torn between her husband and her parents. She was overjoyed with being a new mother, but this ongoing conflict cast a shadow on everything for her.

During their marriage counseling sessions, Lorna and Tom worked out to be more supportive of one another. 

Lorna also learned, with a lot of effort, how to make Tom and the baby a priority and to stand up for herself and for Tom with her parents. 

Once she saw the situation in a clearer way, she felt less conflicted about it. 

Her parents didn't like what she had to say, but they didn't want to lose their only child, so they accepted the situation reluctantly. 

After Lorna stood up to her parents, she felt better about herself and it helped to strengthen her marriage.

Getting Help in Therapy

As I mentioned earlier, the types of conflicts that cause can tension between your spouse and your parents can vary widely. 

If you find yourself in a situation where you're caught between your spouse and your parents, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional to help you or you and your spouse to work it out.

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.

The Mind-Body Connection: What is Your Body Telling You?

As a psychotherapist in New York City who is interested in the mind-body connection, I often see clients who want to participate in a mind-body oriented psychotherapy like Somatic Experiencing, clinical hypnosis or EMDR therapy.

Mind-Body Connection: What is Your Body Telling You?

Often, this is a new experience for clients and they need guidance as to how to tune into their bodies to discover what their bodies are trying to tell them. With some practice, most people can learn to tap into the mind-body connection, which is usually a deeper and more reliable source of inner wisdom than just relying on what we think.

Tapping into the Inner Wisdom of the Mind-Body Connection

When clients begin to tap into the inner wisdom of their mind-body connection, they're often amazed at what they discover about themselves. To a certain extent, most of us have accessed this connection at some point in our lives. When we say, "I had a 'gut feeling' " about a certain situation, whether we realize or not, we're tapping into our mind-body connection to access our inner emotional world where we often know intuitively what's right for us.

Somatic Experiencing and EMDR

When we learn to use Somatic Experiencing, with practice, we can often tune into internal images, colors, symbols, and meanings that aren't usually available to us in regular "talk therapy." 

Depending upon what problems clients are coming in to work on, of course, "talk therapy" can be valuable in helping them resolve their issues. However, I usually find that Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and clinical hypnosis are much more effective in working with trauma than just "talk therapy" alone.

If you're interested in learning more about Somatic Experiencing, I recommend reading either of Peter Levine's books,  In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Dr. Levine writes in an interesting and accessible way. You can also go to the Somatic Experiencing website: Somatic Experiencing Training Institute to get more information.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist with expertise in clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, and EMDR.

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.

Are Your Workplace Stressors Stressing Out Your Family?

In my prior two blog posts, I discussed the bullying boss (Career: Are You a Bully at Work? and Dealing with a Difficult Boss) and how to use Square Breathing (Learning to Relax: Square Breathing) as one way to de-stress at work. Now, I'd like to focus on what you can do if your work stressors are having a negative impact on your family because you're coming home feeling irritable, cranky, worried or in a bad mood. 

Are Your Workplace Stressors Stressing Out Your Family?

Bringing Home Your Work Stress Without Even Realizing It
Without even realizing it, you could be bringing home your work stress in such a way that, without you even saying a word about your job, your spouse and your children are picking up that you're either angry, worried or frustrated and this might be affecting their moods as well. Of course, this isn't your intention. So, what can you do about it?

Are You Bringing Home Your Work Stress Without Even Realizing It?

There's no one-size-fits-all solution to try to inoculate your family from the detrimental effects of your workplace stress. Of course, managing your own stress is optimal with regard to taking care of yourself and your family. 

But what about those times when you come home after a stressful day, and you haven't had time to go to the gym or yoga class before coming home? You get home, you're tired and stressed out and the moment you walk in the door, your spouse, your children, and your barking dogs are all vying for your attention. 

At that point, you might feel so overwhelmed that you're tempted to go right back out the door and keep walking. So, what do you do?

If you're already on your "last nerve," you might lose your temper or do something that you'll regret later. 

Even if you manage to be responsive to your family, you can still feel overwhelmed and they'll often sense your irritability or anger. 

Your anger, frustration and irritability often have nothing to do with them. But you might, unintentionally, take it out on them, adversely affecting your relationships.

Transitional Time Between Work and Home

When clients talk to me about this sort of scenario, I often suggest making an agreement with their families to allow them a certain amount of time to transition from work to home. 

This can mean different things to different people. It usually starts with your being mindful that you've left your workplace and now you're home. 

I know that's not as simple as it sounds, especially since you're walking around with the same mind that's feeling anxious or frustrated by workplace stressors. But being mindful of where you are now--at home--is a start. It's bad enough that you might be under a lot of stress at work, you don't need to prolong it by carrying it around with you and bringing it back home.

So, the transition starts in your own mind. Then, make an agreement with your family agree that, barring an emergency, you need some "time out" before you're bombarded with whatever is going on at home. 

This might mean that you take a calming shower or bath or you spend a few quiet minutes to yourself--or whatever works best for you. The point is that whatever helps you to distinguish, on an emotional level, between when you were at work and where you are now, at home, will allow you to take that space that gets you through the transition.

When you're discussing this "time out" that you need, being specific about the amount of time (15 minutes? a half hour?) is better than giving vague notions about what you need. And don't expect that you or they will get it perfectly the first few times. Habitual patterns are often difficult to change. You might need to tactfully reinforce your agreement with reminders.

The Importance of Self Care

Now, you might wonder why, if I started this blog post by discussing how your workplace stress could be affecting your family, I've been focusing on you and not your family. 

Well, the point is that you need to take care of yourself first before you take care of your family. It's just like when you're on a plane and flight attendants demonstrate safety measures: They always tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before you put the mask on your child. 

Why? Because you'll be absolutely no good to your child if you haven't taken care of yourself first. So, the same applies in the workplace vs home situation: Take care of yourself first by de-stressing and you'll be better able to help your family.

Not only will you be accomplishing your intention of de-stressing yourself and taking care of your family, you'll also be showing by example that taking care of oneself is important and there are simple and effective ways to do it.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist with expertise in clinical hypnosis, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing. 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.

A Bullying Management Style Creates a Negative Work Environment

When clients come to see me about work stressors, one of the most common complaints I hear is that they work in stressful and negative work environments with bullying managers. In addition to hearing about bullying managers, I also see clients who are in managerial positions who feel frustrated with employees. 

A Bullying Management Style Creates a Negative Work Environment

There's no doubt that managers often have to deal with difficult employees. However, very often, these same managers have no insight into how their negative style of management and communication affects their dynamic with employees.

A Bullying Management Style Creates a Negative Work Environment

One of the biggest mistakes managers make with employees is having dictatorial or bullying style of management. Managers who are bullies usually think the only way they can get their employees to work is through intimidation. They create a negative work environment by treating their employees like they're children. Often, they have no awareness or insight that this is what they're doing until we begin discussing in their therapy sessions why their employees seem unmotivated and less effective than employees in other units.

Bullying Often Results From Emotional Security 

More often than not, their own emotional insecurity is what drives their bullying style of management. They don't feel confident that they can get the best from their employees unless they use their position of authority to try to infantilize their workers. Without a doubt, this creates resentment, which leads to a demoralized and unmotivated staff. Not only is it counterproductive with regard to what the manager is trying to accomplish, at times, in the worst case scenarios, it can lead to lawsuits for the manager and the company in the more egregious cases. It's usually a lose-lose situation.

Bullying is an Ineffective Management Style

In the short term, a bullying or negative manager might be able to intimidate employees to do what he or she wants, especially during this protracted recession where there's a shortage of jobs. But, in the long term, bullying and intimidating employees is not an effective way of creating a productive and positive work environment. And, even for the most hard boiled manager, who might not care if the work environment is positive or not, it's usually not effective with regard to advancing his or her own career with senior management if the manager perceived as someone who bullies employees.

So, if this negative and punitive style of management tends to be ineffective in the long run, why do certain managers persist in doing it? Well, there are so many reasons that one blog post is insufficient. But one reason, as I mentioned previously, is that this style usually comes from a deep sense of personal inadequacy. The bullying manager tries to cover up his or her emotional insecurities by trying to intimidate subordinates.

Bullying and "Divide and Conquer" Tactics

Another reason is that, rather than taking the long view with regard to creating a positive work environment, which requires more of an effort as compared to barking out orders to employees, the bullying manager is short sighted. His or her goals are short term. Rather than focusing on team building, the bullying manager will often engage in "divide and conquer" tactics among employees. These managers often have deep seated fears that creating a team approach would lead to a "mutiny" against him or her.

The Bullying Boss as "Lord of the Manor"

Lack of the appropriate skill set and inexperience are also contributing factors that contribute to a bullying style of management. Often, the inexperienced or unskilled manager feels that the only thing he or she has to rely on is the managerial title. He or she behaves like the "lord of the manor" engaging in a feudal style of management. Too often, senior management doesn't invest the time, money or effort involved with training these managers. As a result, a bullying manager often relies on the only thing he or she knows when it comes to authority relationships--the parent-child relationship. Of course, this leads to resentment. In the worst case scenarios, it leads to sabotage, both overt and covert.

Bullying Managers and Personality Disorders

Bullying managers often have personality disorders where they come across as inconsistent, verbally provocative, unable to manage their anger, engaging in black and white thinking and, in the worst cases, being emotionally unstable. When a personality disorder, like borderline personality or narcissistic personality, is involved, this is a much more serious problem. A manager who lacks expertise in managing employees, theoretically, can go for training. But a manager who has a personality disorder needs professional psychological help. In companies where there are numerous complaints about a bullying manager, senior management will often mandate this manager to seek professional help or risk losing his or her job.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have a bullying style of management and training has not been effective in helping you to change, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. 

If you're motivated to do the personal work required to change, you can work through the underlying issues that contribute to an ineffective, bullying style of management.

If you're an employee who has a bully for a boss, you could use the support of a licensed mental health professional, especially if this situation is triggering old unresolved trauma, to feel empowered to take action.

About Me

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 (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: Have You and Your Partner Stopped Having Sex?

As a New York City psychotherapist who sees both individuals and couples, one of the biggest complaints I hear from people who are in long term relationships is that the passion has gone out of their relationships (see my article:  Relationships: Overcoming Sexual Incompatibility).

Relationships: Have You and Your Spouse Stopped Having Sex?

Of course, we know that relationships change and that, for instance, a 20 year marriage usually doesn't have the same kind of sexual excitement as when the couple first met. The familiarity of seeing each other every day, dealing with life's ups and downs and settling into daily routines takes away from the early romantic idealization and excitement.

After many years, couples need to find new ways to keep their sexual lives interesting. But this isn't what I'm referring to in this blog post. What I'm talking about is the marriage or long term relationship where sex is completely gone. There is no sexual intimacy and the couple are living like roommates or brother and sister.

Why Does Sexual Passion Disappear in Long Term Relationships?

Why does sexual passion disappear in so many long term relationships and marriages? Well, as you can imagine, there are probably nearly as many "reasons" as there are relationships.

Often, when couples come to see me about this problem, one person in the relationship is very unhappy about this and the other is okay with it. To begin with, this in itself is a problem because, for the person who is okay with a sexless relationship (and might even be relieved not to be having sex any more), there's often little motivation to change. The one possible motivation is that he or she doesn't want a breakup.

Common Reasons Why Couples Stop Having Sex 

Some of the more common reasons why couples stop having sex include: unresolved anger and resentment by one or both people, power struggles in the relationship, problems with children, financial struggles, unresolved childhood sexual abuse, infidelity, sexual incompatibility, medical problems, anger about in-laws, and so on.

If the lack of sexual intimacy has gone on for a long time, one or both people might start to question whether there is still a viable relationship and if they should stay together. Of course, there are many things that create a bond between two people in a committed relationship. It's not all about sex. But the lack of any sex is often an indicator that something might have gone awry in the relationship.

Ruling Out Medical Problems

If you and your spouse are in a sexless relationship and this is bothering one or both of you, you owe it to yourselves to seek help. Ruling out any medical causes, such as erectile dysfunction (ED)for men or pain during sexual intercourse for women is usually a good place to start. Very often, medical problems can be related to emotional problems, so it's not an either-or situation.

Getting Help from a Licensed Mental Health Professional
But once medical problems have been ruled out, seeking the help of an objective licensed mental health professional, who works with couples, is the next step.

An objective professional with expertise in working with couples will have no particular agenda in terms of a couple staying together or breaking up. I mention this because people often think that couples counselors always try to keep couples together.

Have You and Your Spouse Stopped Having Sex?  Get Help

But most couples counselors work to help the couple come up with the best possible solution for the couple, whether this is staying together or working out an amicable separation. The point is not to continue to drift on in a state where one or both people in the relationship are unhappy but do nothing about it.

About Me

I'm a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individuals and couples.

I've helped many people to resolve problems, including lack of sexual intimacy, in their relationships, so they can have more fulfilling 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.

Want to Change? Start By Accepting Yourself As You Are Right Now

It might sound counterintuitive, but the best way to achieve lasting change is to accept yourself as you are right now. After all, you might say, you can't change and remain as you are at the same time. But, if you think about this for a moment, you might see that this isn't what I mean. The key words in this blog post title is "start by accepting."

Self Acceptance and Change

What Does It Mean to Accept Yourself as You Are?

But what do we mean when we talk about "accepting" who we are? Does this mean we're complacent and we're not exploring ways to improve? Does "accepting" mean we've given up or we feel hopeless? Not at all! If anything, it's just the opposite! But why?

When we accept ourselves at a certain point in time, we're acknowledging what is. We're not in denial or pretending that things are different. We're not wallowing in self hatred or calling ourselves a "failure" because we're not where we want to be. On the contrary, we're starting at the point where we're saying, "This is where I am right now. I'd like things to be different, and I'll work towards that goal. But, for now, this is where I am."

Why is It So Important to Accept Yourself as You Are?

So, you might ask why it's so important to start by accepting yourself as you are? Well, for one thing, if we want to make changes we need to acknowledge the current situation. Otherwise, how will we know what we're changing from? We need a starting point. 

Secondly, very often, when we don't start by accepting ourselves as we are, we become so negative about ourselves that we sabotage our own efforts to change. The "voice of negative prediction" starts to haunt us: "You'll never change. You've tried it before and you failed. You'll fail again because you're a failure."

Let's take a common example: As part of their New Year's resolutions, many people make a commitment to lose weight. One of the obstacles that gets in the way is that people who want to lose weight start out by being very self critical about their body image. They berate themselves for being overweight, compare themselves unfavorable to others, and then dwell on all the reasons why they're not going to succeed. This negativity and self criticism sets them up to fail because they get to the point where they say to themselves, "Why bother?"

How much different it is when a person comes from a place of self acceptance. Instead of being self critical and feeling shame and self loathing, they feel nurturing towards themselves. With this positive attitude, they're much more likely to be nurturing towards themselves, thereby increasing the likelihood that they'll stick with their healthy weight loss plan.

Self Acceptance Can Be Challenging

Getting to the point of self acceptance can be challenging. Ingrained negative ways of thinking can be hard to change. 

If you're struggling to make positive changes, but you're stuck in old negative patterns, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in helping clients overcome these obstacles.

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

I work with individual adults and couples, and I've helped many clients overcome obstacles to living a more fulfilling life.

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

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

Overcoming Creative Blocks with Clinical Hypnosis

As a New York City psychotherapist, I often work with artistic clients who are trying to overcome creative blocks. Writers, actors, composers, and artists often struggle with blocks in their creative endeavors. The tendency is usually to struggle and try to push yourself through this phase. 

Overcoming Creative Blocks

Sometimes this works for some people but, often, it backfires because the more you push yourself, the more frustrated you become. And the more frustrated you become with your creative block, the more likely you'll become self critical. The more self critical you are, the less likely you'll be able to overcome your creative block.

We often associate creativity with artists and writers, but we're all creative beings no matter what we do. We use our creativity everyday to problem solve or come up with ideas in our personal lives and at work.

The Odyssey
I just finished rereading The Odyssey (Homer). When I read it the first time as a teen, I didn't appreciate it nearly as well as I did this time around. 

Aside from the fact that my current reading of it was from a much better translation (Fagle), as an adult who has had much more life experience than the teen I was when I read it the first time, I appreciate so much more Odysseus' spirit to survive, his wily nature, and the wonderfully creative solutions he comes up with whenever he encounters life and death situations. His creative nature saved his life as well as the lives of his loved ones.

When we're blocked, for whatever reason, it's hard for us to think "out of the box." We're too stuck to explore and discover new ways to look at a situation or a problem, and we might not know what's keeping us stuck. 

Maybe it's an unwillingness to look at a situation from a different perspective. Maybe we're in a rut and can't see beyond the immediate circumstances. Often, we don't know why we're creatively block.

Clinical hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, can be very helpful in overcoming creative blocks. Hypnosis helps us to access our creativity on an unconscious level. And the best part is that we don't even need to know the reason why our creativity is blocked for hypnosis to work.

If you're experiencing a creative block that you've been unable to overcome on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who is trained in clinical hypnosis.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City 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.