Is It Love or an Infatuation?

Knowing the difference between love and infatuation can be tricky.  Often, love starts out with that same heady feeling you get when you're infatuated with someone.  

You might spend all day fantasizing obsessively about the other person, forget to eat, dream about him or her at night, and talk incessantly about this person to your friends.  

But, the main difference is that if it's really love and by this, I mean mature love, over time, it will develop into more than just an obsession and it will be reality based.

Is It Love or Infatuation?

What is Reality Based Love?
What do I mean by "reality based" love?  Well, when you're infatuated with someone, the other person might not even know that you exist.  If you're infatuated, the fact that he doesn't even know you, won't stop you from thinking about him all the time.  But when it's really love, it's based on mutual feelings that you've developed together for each other as you get to know each other.  That's what makes it reality based.

Why?  Because you can't really be in love with someone that you don't know, no matter how intensely you feel your feelings.  And it takes a mutual love relationship to get to really know someone--not just your fantasy of who you think this person is.  If your feelings are for someone relatively new to your life, it can't be one sided and still be considered mature love.  I know some people might disagree with me about this, but I think this is important when you're trying to figure if it's love or infatuation.

Spending time together is important so you get to know each other over time rather than getting carried away with who you each think the other person is in your fantasies.  An infatuation can fizzle out if the person that you fantasized about turns out to be a completely different person.  Then, you know your feelings were for the fantasy rather than the actual person.

Mature Love Grows Over Time as Compared to Infatuation
Mature love usually keeps growing over time, assuming it's nurtured.  Mature love is more stable usually and will be more likely to survive the test of time and life's challenges better than infatuation.

Whereas infatuation often has a painful emotional element to it, especially if the feelings are unrequited, mature love, where there is mutuality, makes you feel good about yourself most of the time.  That doesn't mean that you'll always be happy with this other person.  But, generally, speaking, when it's mutual love, rather than infatuation, its a more positive experience most of the time.

Does This Make Infatuation a Bad Experience?
No, not necessarily.  It depends.  If you can enjoy the feeling of being infatuated and it adds a certain passion and aliveness to your life, these feelings can have positive consequences, as long as you have realistic expectations and understand that it's not love.  Feeling alive and passionate might lead to your making positive changes in yourself and in your life.

If you have unrealistic expectations, as mentioned before, it can be a painful experience.  Obsessions can be hard to deal with over time. They can cause you to neglect important areas in your life as you spend most of your time and mental energy focusing on the object of your infatuation.

It all depends on your attitude.  If you can maintain a healthy attitude about your infatuation, it can be a fun time and you can open you up to new experiences, possibly, even to a mature love the next time around.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR 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.

All You Need is More Than Love

Often, when people fall in love, their attitude is that, like the Beatles song, all they need is love.  Being in love and passionate for each other can take you along for a while--maybe even the first two years of a relationship.  Then, it soon becomes obvious that you need more than just love to have a successful relationship.

All You Need is More Than Love

Here are a few other important factors, beyond love, that contribute to a happy relationship:

Respecting Each Other:  If you love each other, but there are times, let's say when you're angry, that you speak and act disrespectfully to each other, after a while, love alone isn't going to carry you through. Disrespect can take many forms:  a contemptuous look, name calling, cheating on your partner, lying, etc. It's important that when disagreements come up, as they inevitably do in serious relationships, you both remember to be mutually respectful to one another.

Learning to Compromise: Falling in love and feeling passionate for one another is great, but relationships also call for compromise at times.  If you and your partner haven't learned the give-and-take that is part of any long-term relationship, more than likely, you'll soon be embroiled in arguments and power struggles where each of you is trying to get your way.  Both people need to know how to compromise so it's not just a one-way street with one person doing all the compromising.

Having Similar Core Values and Outlook on Life: When you fall in love, it might be due, in part, to a sexual attraction or you enjoy similar activities, but it's also important for the health of a long-term relationship that you have similar core values.  You don't  need to agree about everything, but for the things that are most important to each of you, it's important to have similar values.

There Are Exceptions:
Now, I know there are couples who have long-term relationships where they don't have similar core values.  But they're the exception rather than the rule.  For instance, if your religious faith is important to you and you know you will only be happy with a partner who shares the same faith, don't think that overlooking this in a partner will work or, worse still, that you'll convert him or her to your faith.  It can happen, but more often than not, it doesn't.

If you know you won't be happy unless you have children and your partner doesn't want kids, don't overlook this.  You might feel resentful in the future.  There are so many other examples of this, whether it involves attitudes about money, politics, families, etc.  So, be honest with yourself and your partner at the beginning of the relationship.

All You Need is More Than Love
When you first fall in love, you might not want to think about respect, compromise or core values.  It's easy to get swept away on a tidal wave of love and think that "love will conquer all" and other cliches about love.

And maybe you and your partner will be one of the exceptions that I've discussed, but chances are you won't be.  So, don't ignore some of the red flags that might come up early on about these issues if you want a long-term relationship.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR 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 regular business hours or email me.

Can a Long Distance Relationship Survive?

There are many couples who are in long distance relationships.  Long distance relationships occur either by choice or, more often, of necessity.  Having a long distance relationship can be a challenge, but if you're honest with yourself and your partner, you each know what you want, you set up certain parameters for yourselves, you make an effort to make time for each other, and you're willing to renegotiate with each other if it's not working out, it can work out. 

Can a Long Distance Relationship Survive?

It Makes a Difference If It's an Established Relationship vs. a New Relationship
Of course, it makes a difference whether you've been together for a while and you have a loving, trusting relationship vs. trying to have a long distance relationship when you've just met each other.  For established, stable relationships, there are still challenges, but you have a foundation of love and trust to see you through, especially if your time apart is limited to a specific period of time.

Knowing that there are challenges ahead, here are some guidelines that can be helpful:

• Be Honest With Yourself and Your Partner Before You Enter Into a Long Distance Relationship: If you've just met someone who lives a plane ride away and neither of you plans to move to the other's city, consider whether you want to be in a long distance relationship.  Only you know what you need.  If you know you like having your romantic partner around to cuddle with every weekend and your long distance relationship will only permit for occasional visits with each other, you need to communicate this.  Likewise, you need to be able to hear this from this new person in your life.  It will probably get lonely at times, especially if you've decided to be monogamous with each other, so you need to know this in advance and have realistic expectations.

• Be Clear About the Status of Your Relationship: This brings me to another issue that couples in this situation often don't discuss:  Be clear about what each of you wants from this relationship.  Are you dating this person as well as others?  Are you exclusive with one another?  Knowing this in advance can save a lot of heartaches if you're each on a different wave length. Of course, if you're married, that's usually a different story, unless you have an open relationship.  Still, you don't want to assume that you're both on the same page when you might not be.  Communication is key to help avoid misunderstandings.

• Make Time For Each Other: With the advent of Skype and Face Time, you can, at least, see one another when you talk, assuming these services are available to both of you.  You're going to have to be better organized than couples who live near each other about making time for each other.  It will require some planning, so don't assume that the other person will be available spontaneously when you're ready to see each other online, especially if you're in different time zones.  While you're making time for each other, it often helps to have some shared activities that you can both engage in at the same time.  It might mean setting up a Skype session while you're each having dinner or engaging in other activities, if possible.  Shared activities, even at a distance, can help bridge the gap.  No, it's not as good as having the person right next to you, but it can help.

• Plan Visits In Person With Each Other: If possible, plan some in person visits to spend quality time together.  As much as  possible, when you're together, avoid other distractions so you can dedicate the precious time you have to each other.  You want to make the most of the time you have together. You will probably need to negotiate who will come when and how often.

• Be Aware that Unrealistic Romantic Fantasies in New Relationships Are Often Part of the Long Distance Experience: When your in a new relationship that is a long distance relationship, thinking about each other and looking forward to the next Skype call or the next rare visit, you could fill the gaps with romantic fantasies about who this person is and how it would be if you were living together in the same location.  When a new relationship is a long distance relationship, you miss out on the day-to-day interactions that can tell you so much about the other person and how the two of you would be together.  Let's face it--you won't know each other as well as compared to if you were living near each other.  It's easy to imagine that the two of you would be perfect living together, and maybe you would be.  But recognize that, even with occasional in person visits, the relationship remains in that exciting, fired up, in love stage longer than it would if you were living in the same location and seeing each other more often. "What's wrong with that?,"you might say.  There's nothing wrong with it per se.  It's just that that the heady, in love stage isn't the basis for a long term relationship.  When you get beyond this stage and you're in a more mature loving relationship, you have a better sense as to whether the two of you would be good living together or married.  Once again, I do know of instances where it worked out just fine.  But knowing in advance that this might be a pitfall can help you avoid mistakes.

• Be Willing to Re-Evaluate Your Long Distance Relationship If It's Not Working:  Over time, be willing to re-evaluate your long distance relationship.  Is it working for each of you?  If you're married and, for instance, one of you took a job in another city out of necessity and this doesn't look like a short term arrangement, consider if one of you can move to the other city (or country), especially if your current arrangement isn't working out.  More and more couples are having to make these decisions for economic reasons, a lack of jobs in certain fields or military service.  So, you're not alone. If you're married and you've both decided that you'll deal with the challenges of a long distance relationship for only a certain period of time, consider your priorities.  If finances make it so that you don't have a choice right now other than to have a long distance relationship, think about what you each can do to make it easier.  Keeping in mind the long term goal can be helpful.  It will take time and effort.  But, often, when couples go through challenges and come out of it successfully on the other side, their relationship is stronger.  Only you know your relationship and what you and your spouse can deal with in terms of a separation.  If the relationship is new, you each might have thought originally that a long distance relationship would work out between you.  But if one or both of you feel it's not working and there aren't any changes you can make to improve the situation, you might need to consider that, at this point in time, you can't be in a relationship together--even if you love each other.  Sometimes, timing really is everything and this can be frustrating.  Maybe if you had met at a different time and under different circumstances, it might have worked out.  But it's better to acknowledge what's happening than pretending that it's working out when it's not.  Communicate your feelings, be honest, compassionate, and tactful.

We Don't Always Fall In Love With "the Girl or Boy Next Door:"
Love can be mysterious, and we don't always fall in love with someone who lives conveniently nearby.  So, at some point, you might find yourself in a long distance relationship.

Whether you choose to be in a long distance relationship or it's occurring out of a necessity, being aware of the potential pitfalls can help you to plan and overcome them.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR 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.

Healing from the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough

Traditionally, psychotherapy has focused on helping clients understand and develop insight into their problems.  While insight is an important first step, for many emotional problems, insight isn't enough to bring about change.

Healing From the Inside Out: Insight Isn't Enough

For many years, this bias in psychotherapy--that developing insight is the key to change, has been very frustrating to clients because it hasn't led to change for them, especially when the problem involves trauma.  This is because the insight is only on an intellectual level and the client doesn't feel it on an emotional level.

This can leave clients feeling that, beyond their original problem that brought them into therapy,  there must be something very wrong with them that they can't, somehow, use this insight to bring about the change that they want.  In some cases, it can be almost as traumatizing as the original problem.  Very often, at that point, the therapy reaches an impasse because the therapist has used everything he or she knows to try to help the client.

Somatic Experiencing and EMDR Therapy
My experience has been that Somatic Experiencing (SE) and EMDR, often in combination with psychodynamic psychotherapy, can be much more effective than just talk therapy alone.  With SE and EMDR, clients usually have a more integrated experience where their understanding is not just an intellectual insight, but they can feel it on an emotional and visceral level.  Also, prior to doing the actual processing in SE or EMDR, the therapist helps the client to develop internal resources to cope with the upcoming processing and to develop the ability to contain the experience on an emotional level.

I have many psychotherapy clients, who have had a lot of prior experience with therapy and who can explain their problems with clear intellectual insight, but who haven't been able to use those insights to make the changes they want in their lives.  Using either EMDR or SE, whichever works best for the client, they've been able to heal and make changes because the healing is coming from the inside out, from the bottom up, rather than just being a top-down, intellectual experience.

There's nothing magical or immediate about EMDR or SE.  There are also no guarantees.  Both of SE and EMDR involve a willingness to do the therapeutic work.  Aside from using EMDR and SE, I also encourage my clients, where necessary, to take practical action steps in their lives to bring about change.

Whether you're someone who has had a lot of prior experience in therapy or someone who is new to therapy, you owe it to yourself to consider SE or EMDR to help you resolve your problems.

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

Overcoming Your Emotional Blind Spots

Emotional blind spots are often aspects of ourselves that we're unable to see, but other people, especially people who are close to us, can see.  The problem with emotional blind spots is that they often keep us making the same mistakes over and over again or they affect our loved ones in ways we never intended.

Overcoming Your Emotional Blind Spots

The following composite scenario is an example of an emotional blind spot.  As a composite of many cases, it preserves confidentiality.

Mary
Mary never knew her father when she was growing up.  It was a family secret.  When other young children talked about their fathers, she felt sad and wished she had a father too.  

It wasn't until she attended the funeral of a family friend, when she was in her mid-20s, that she found out, inadvertently when she overheard people talking, that this "family friend" was actually her biological father.  He was always nice to her, and she was very fond of him.  

Mary was shocked and very sad to discover that she never had a father-daughter relationship with him. When she confronted her mother about it, her mother refused to discuss it, so Mary vowed that she would never do this to her future children.

When she became pregnant from a man that she had only been dating for a few months and had already broken up with because he was unreliable, she decided to have the baby and allow him to be involved in the child's life, just as most fathers would be.  But the child's father continued to be unreliable and continually disappointed their daughter by not showing up.  The child, who looked forward to seeing the father, was always disappointed and hurt.

Mary's mother and sisters tried to talk to her about how damaging this was to Mary's daughter, who was now seven.  But Mary kept insisting that it was important for her daughter to have the father in the picture.  Due to her own unresolved needs, she continued to try to keep the father involved, and he continued to disappoint the daughter.  Mary couldn't see that her emotional blind spot and her own unresolved childhood issues kept her in denial and were emotionally damaging to her daughter.

As a teenager, when Mary's daughter refused to see her father any more, Mary felt very upset.  All of her friends and family told her that her daughter's decision was an emotionally healthy decision because the father always disappointed her.  Mary had a hard time seeing it--until a close friend tactfully suggested that Mary might have an emotional blind spot about this issue and suggested that Mary see a therapist.

Somewhat hesitantly, Mary started therapy and when her therapist also pointed out her emotional blind spot, Mary began to deal with her own loss and realized that it was affecting her ability to see what was best for her daughter.  She grieved for the father she never had and, over time, she freed herself from this emotional burden that was starting to drive a wedge between her and her daughter.

Emotional blind spots are often hard for us to see on our own.  They usually involve aspects of ourselves, our lives or our loved ones that we're in denial about.  One clue that you might have an emotional blind spot, which is unconscious, is when you keep finding yourself in the same situation over and over again.

An example of a possible emotional blind spot is if you keep choosing romantic partners that have problems with alcohol or who are abusive.  If you continually find yourself in these types of situations, it's worth exploring if you have an emotional blind spot.

Getting Help in Therapy
Working through your emotional blind spots with a skilled, objective therapist usually gets you a lot further than trying to deal with emotional blind spots on your own.  Once you're free of the emotional blind spots that cause you to keep making the same mistakes, you have a chance for a much more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more abut m, 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.

An Emotional Dilemma in a Relationship: Wanting and Dreading Love

Many people, who have experienced childhood trauma, come to therapy because they feel stuck and confused when it comes to romantic relationships.  They often feel highly ambivalent about the possibility of having an intimate connection to another person.  

An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love

On the one hand, they might be very lonely and long for someone who would love them and that they could love.  On the other hand, they might also feel extremely frightened of allowing themselves to be that emotionally vulnerable.  And therein lies the dilemma.

Early Attachment Problems Can Cause Problems in Relationships Later On
Usually, people who go back and forth between wanting and dreading a deep emotional connection experienced emotional attachment problems with one or both parents or caregivers.  Based on infant research, we now know how important early attachment is to having a healthy emotional life and being able to form intimate attachments with others.

When parents are either emotionally unreliable, neglectful, abusive, depressed, or emotionally unattuned to their young children, these children are more apt to grow up feeling emotionally insecure and vulnerable about forming relationships.  It's hard for them to trust.  They're very afraid of getting hurt or being emotionally abandoned again.  As a result, although they might feel very isolated and lonely, it's often difficult to allow themselves to open up emotionally to others.

An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love

Fear of Opening Up in Therapy
Often, people who struggle between wanting and dreading an intimate connection find it difficult to come to therapy to get help for this issue.  Coming to therapy means opening up and taking a risk with a therapist, which means allowing themselves to be vulnerable.  How do they know they can trust the therapist when they couldn't trust their own parents?  It's a dilemma.

For many people who somewhat overcome their fear to come to therapy, at least enough to come to a first session, their experience is often one of being hypervigilant--waiting to see if there are any signs that the therapist will betray or hurt them in some way.

A skilled clinician, who has worked with clients on developmental attachment problems, will know not to take it personally.  She would know that she must take her time to help the client to form a therapeutic alliance over time to build a rapport and trust.

Many clients, who suffer with developmental attachment issues, find it difficult to sustain treatment, and they leave after a few sessions.  Often, they give another "reason" for leaving therapy--money or time issues, never revealing that it's their dread of opening up that's making them want to flee from treatment.

For clients who can sustain treatment with therapists who have expertise in working with attachment issues, if they can allow themselves to build a rapport and trust with the an empathetic therapist, over time, they can also learn to form trusting and loving relationships outside of treatment.

This is the kind of therapeutic work that takes time.  A client, who has a fear of getting close to others, can't be rushed into overcoming his or her fear.  Each client is different and, if there is progress in treatment, it will probably be a process where it is two steps forward and one step backward due to the high level of ambivalence and fear.  There is also usually a lot of underlying shame of feeling "not good enough" or "not lovable."

Getting Help in Therapy

Wanting and Dreading Love:  Feeling Lost?  Get Help

My experience has been that using a combination of Somatic Experiencing, psychodynamic psychotherapy, resourcing (i.e., helping the client to develop better coping skills and an increased capacity to tolerate vulnerability) along with an expertise in developmental attachment issues, is often the most effective way to help clients to overcome the dilemma of longing for love and dreading it at the same time.

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more abut 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.

Somatic Experiencing: Overcoming the Freeze Response Related to Trauma

Fight or flight is the response that most people associate with trauma. Most people are less familiar with the freeze response as a reaction to trauma.  But, in fact, freezing in fear is  another typical response associated with trauma.  The freeze response is also known as dissociation.

Somatic Experiencing: Overcoming the Freeze Response Related to Trauma

The following composite scenario is an example of a traumatic freeze response and how Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body oriented therapy, can help.  As always, in my composite examples, all identifying information has been changed to protect confidentiality:

Jan:

A senior manager at Jan's company had shown a sexual interest in Jan for several months.  He called her several times and sent her email to ask her out on a date.  Even though she didn't report to this manager, she feared she would get in trouble if he thought she was being rude towards him, so she always turned him down politely and tried to avoid him.  

Over time, this manager became more flirtatious in his calls and email, and this was making Jan increasingly anxious.  Every time she had to use the elevator, she was vigilant that he was not inside because she didn't want to be alone with him.  She knew about the company's sexual harassment policy and that his behavior would be considered sexual harassment, but she was too afraid that she would be blamed somehow for his behavior.

One day when she was alone in the office pantry, this manager entered the room and he said in a flirtatious tone, "Alone at last.  You've been avoiding me."  Jan was in the corner of the room and she froze in fear.  She wanted to leave the room, but she felt as if she was paralyzed and frozen in place.  Her heart was racing, she felt on the verge of tears, and she couldn't understand what was happening to her.  

Fortunately, a colleague came into the room and the senior manager left.  The colleague approached Jan and said, "Are you all right?  You look white as a ghost."  Jan, finally able to move, excused herself, went into her office, closed the door, and burst into tears.

Jan began therapy shortly after that incident.  She revealed a history of sexual molestation by an uncle starting when she was five years old.  According to Jan, when she told her mother, her mother blamed Jan and told her that she must have done something to provoke the uncle into molesting her.  Jan's response was to blame herself, as children often do.  And, even though her parents severed their ties with the uncle, they blamed her for the problems.

Therapy began with emotional resourcing whereby Jan began to develop enough self confidence that she was able to report the senior manager to the company's Equal Employment Officer.  His email alone incriminated him.  During the EEO investigation, other women also revealed that he was also sexually harassing them, and he was terminated.

There were many parallels between the original sexual abuse when Jan was a child and the sexual harassment she experienced as an adult at work.  So, an important part of Jan's therapy, which was the mind-body therapy known as Somatic Experiencing, was for Jan to learn to distinguish "then" from "now."  

In other words, whereas her initial freeze reaction to the senior manager triggered the original trauma from her childhood, leaving her feeling like a child, she learned to separate (or "uncouple" in Somatic Experiencing terms) her childhood experience from her adult experience.  This alone was an empowering experience.  She not only knew on a cognitive level that she had more power now than she did as a child, but she felt it on an emotional level.  

Somatic Experiencing is a Mind-Body Oriented Trauma Therapy  

Using Somatic Experiencing, over time, Jan was also able to work through the original trauma of being sexually molested.

Overcoming the Freeze Response Related to Trauma With Somatic Experiencing Therapy

In the scenario above, there is a clear connection between Jan's response to the sexual harassment at the office and the sexual molestation that occurred when she was a child.  In other cases, the connection isn't always so clear.  But, unlike regular talk therapy, Somatic Experiencing doesn't require this kind of clear connection for it to be effective.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have a history of trauma that is affecting you now, you owe it to yourself to get help to overcome the trauma so you can lead a fulfilling life, trauma free.  My professional experience as a therapist who uses Somatic Experiencing with clients who have tried, unsuccessfully, to work through trauma with regular talk therapy is that Somatic Experiencing tends to be more effective for most people.

I've included a link below for the professional Somatic Experiencing website, which provides more information about Somatic Experiencing and a directory of Somatic Experiencing therapists.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR 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.