Resilience: Tips on Coping with Life's Inevitable Ups and Downs

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to talk to a friend's elderly mother about her resilience and I wrote about it in my blog post called Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges.

Today, I would like to focus on the topic of resilience and provide some tips on how you can learn to become more resilient so you can cope with life's inevitable ups and downs.

Resilience: Tips on Coping With Life's Ups and Downs

Tips on Coping With Life's Ups and Downs:
Manage Your Stress:  Stress is an inevitable part of life.  It's important that you manage your stress so that you don't become overwhelmed by being in a constant state of stress.  Here are some suggestions:

• Exercise Regularly: Whether your regular exercise is walking, stretching, running, going to the gym, taking an exercise class or doing yoga, regular exercise that's the right level for you and that you enjoy can make all the difference in managing your stress and elevating your mood.

• Meditate:  Spending at least a few minutes a day meditating can also help relieve stress.  There are many different ways to meditate.  I usually teach my psychotherapy clients to do a meditation called the Safe Place meditation (also called the Relaxing Place meditation).  See my blog article:  Wellness: Safe Place Meditation for more details on how you can learn to do relatively simple, enjoyable meditation.

• Use Humor to Have Fun:  Most people don't usually equate psychotherapy with having fun, but in my blog article, Humor Can Be an Effective Tool in Psychotherapy, I discuss how many of my clients, who are starting to feel better, can often see the humorous side of a situation that they might not have been able to see before.  When it's used in a tactful way, humor can be an effective way of managing stress and building a sense of resilience.  A sense of humor can be a great source of inner strength and fun.

• Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle:  Eating nutritiously, getting enough sleep, and reducing your alcohol intake are all part of a healthy lifestyle.  In a prior blog article, Tips For Self Care for Caregivers, I discuss the importance of self care. The article focuses on caregivers, but most of the tips that I give can apply to anyone.

• Build Up Your Self Esteem:  How you feel about yourself can affect how you deal with life's ups and downs.  If you're putting yourself down and engaging in negative self talk, it's going to be that much harder for you to deal with the stressors in your life.  In two prior blog articles that I wrote, Developing Self Esteem and a Sense of Self Mastery and Are You Sabotaging Yourself With Negative Self Talk?, I address these issues and provide some tips on how to boost your self esteem.

• Keep Things in Perspective:  Ask yourself:  How many times have you worried about a particular problem only to find that the problem isn't as bad as you thought?  Worrying about the problem didn't help, and it might have actually gotten in the way of your being able to problem solve.  Being able to keep things in perspective can help you become more aware of what's really important to you and what's not.  Sometimes, you have to let go of certain things that, in the long run, really aren't that important.  In my blog article, Accepting the Things You Cannot Change and Having the Courage to Change the Things You Can, I discuss this important concept which is a central part of most recovery programs.  In my blog article, Are You Overreacting to Routine Disappointments?, I discuss how you can learn to let go of routine disappointments so you're not constantly overreacting.

• Find Meaning in Your Life:  In my blog article, A Search For a Meaningful Life, I discuss Victor Frankl, a psychoanalyst who was developed Logotherapy and who has been an inspiration to millions of people.  Dr. Frankl was a holocaust survivor.  Even at the lowest point in his life while he was in a Nazi concentration camp and he thought his beloved wife was probably dead, he found meaning in the every day things of life.  His attitude was that although his captors could imprison his body, they couldn't imprison his mind. Finding meaning in your life is often a matter of becoming more aware of the things you have to be grateful for, even in the midst of adversity.  Most of us have never had to go through the ordeals that Victor Frankl endured, so it's worthwhile to ask yourself what you're focusing on:  Do you tend to focus on the negative to the exclusion of seeing the positive things in your life?

• Stay Connected With Your Emotional Support System:  Having supportive friends and family can make a tremendous difference when it comes to managing stress.  Talking about things that are bothering you can help alleviate stress.  At the same time, it's important to choose wisely when it comes to talking about your problems.  You want to choose people that you trust and that you know have your best interests at heart.

A Short Scenario of Being Resilient and Coping With Life's Ups and Downs:

Mary:
Mary is a friend who is a hospital emergency room social worker.  She has one of the most stressful jobs you can have in health care, and she's been doing this job for over 15 years.  Everyday she deals with a steady stream of patients who are in crisis either physically or mentally.

Mary told me that she has seen many other ER social workers with a lot less time on the job who have crashed and burned under the unrelenting stress.  So, I asked her how she has been able to deal with her stressful job at the same time that she is raising a family, and the things she told me are the same tips that I've provided above.

First:  Mary starts everyday by either going to the gym or going for a long walk before she gets to her job.  On the days when she doesn't have time to get to the gym, she gets off the subway one stop before her regular train stop and walks the rest of the way.  It takes her an extra 15 minutes, but she feels it's worth it in terms of managing her stress.

Second:  During her lunch hour, she finds an empty office and listens to guided meditation recordings that help her to relax.  She told me, "I can feel my whole body start to relax as I listen to the meditation and feel myself being transported to a relaxing place in my mind."

Third:  Mary told me that it's very tempting, especially when she's busy, to grab whatever junk food she  might find at the lobby news stand, but she makes sure she brings a healthy lunch with her so she's not tempted to eat junk, which might be momentarily gratifying, but will make eventually pack on the pounds.

Fourth:  Mary and her colleagues spend time, even if it's a few minutes, talking about their day.  They also usually find something funny to joke about to relieve stress.

Fifth:  Mary has a lot of good close friends that she talks to on a regular basis.  She has even maintained college friendships. She has also developed new friendships among colleagues.  She has one of the best emotional support systems of all the people that I know.

Sixth:  Since Mary has been a competent ER social worker for a long time, so she has a good sense of her self worth.  Even when she might be dealing with a difficult administrator, she maintains her cool and keeps her sense of perspective.

There are times when there are fatalities in the ER, which are difficult for everyone.  But Mary has learned to deal with these traumatic incidents by asking herself if she did everything possible that she could to help the patient.  If she knows she did everything she could, she doesn't blame herself.  She and her colleagues also support one another through those difficult times.

Seventh:  Last, but not least, Mary finds a lot of meaning in her personal life as well as in her career.  On most days, she feels grateful for the loving people and good things in her life.  Although she isn't part of a formal religion, she has a sense of spirituality in nature, and she tries to be in nature as often as possible because she finds it nurturing.

Mary has had plenty of adversity in her life, but she has developed the capacity to bounce back because of her resilience and her strong support system.

Getting Help in Therapy
Not everyone is as fortunate as Mary to have developed resilience and have a strong support system.  Many people are struggling on their own and they haven't developed the resilience to deal with life's adversity.

Even people who have a strong support system often find that there are times in their lives when they need the help of a licensed mental health practitioner.

If you feel overwhelmed by your problems, rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed psychotherapist who has experience helping clients to become more resilient so they can overcome their problems.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many psychotherapy clients to overcome their problems so they can lead more fulfilling lives.

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

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

Learning to Develop Healthy Boundaries Within an Enmeshed Family

As an adult, learning to develop healthy boundaries with your family of origin can be difficult, especially if you come from an enmeshed family (see my article:  Overcoming Shame: Enmeshed Families).

Learning to Develop Healthy Boundaries Within an Enmeshed Family

Learning to Develop Healthy Boundaries Within an Enmeshed Family: Adolescence Through 20s, 30s and Beyond
Learning to separate emotionally in a healthy way from your family of origin is something that everyone goes through in your adolescence, 20s, 30s and beyond.

During adolescence, teens usually begin to identify more with their peers and less so with their parents and siblings.  This is part of normal development.  This is usually the beginning of having some autonomy that is age appropriate.

In healthy families, parents usually understand that this is part of normal adolescent emotional development and make allowances for some of the turbulent changes that take place during this period.

But in enmeshed families, one or both parents often take offense to an adolescent who is going through these changes.  They don't recognize this as part of normal development and often see it as a form of betrayal.  This creates even more tension in what can be a very confusing time for a teen.

Most teens will rebel against parents who try to keep them enmeshed in the family system.  This, in turn, often leads to a clash of wills as these parents try to force their teens to bend to their will and the teens are just as adamant that they're not going to knuckle under.

Learning to Develop Healthy Boundaries in an Enmeshed Family: Teenage Rebellion

Other teens succumb to the parents' guilt-inducing tactics and fall in line completely with their parents' wishes to remain part of an enmeshed family system.  These teens and their parents don't realize that this will have repercussions for the teens later on in adulthood because they haven't learned to develop healthy emotional boundaries in an age appropriate way.  They are much more likely to choose romantic partners who are codependent and who also want an enmeshed romantic relationship.

Other teens struggle somewhere in between on an continuum, asserting themselves in certain situations and not in others, making adolescence a very difficult period in their lives.

I've seen many parents make matters worse by continually trying to up the ante, to no avail.  They don't realize that they're actually doing more damage to their relationships with their children than if they had more patience and understanding.

As teens develop into young adults in their 20s and 30s, the period of healthy emotional separation and individuation continues.  Once young adults in their 20s and 30s can move out of the family household, this helps, but it's not the complete answer for many adults who continue to struggle their whole lives to have a healthy emotional life rather than continuing to feel trapped in an enmeshed family.

Developing Healthy Boundaries Within an Enmeshed Family: An Inner Conflict Between What You Think and What You Feel
As I mentioned in my prior blog post about enmeshed families, shame and guilt are the two emotions that are prevalent for teens and adults who grew up in enmeshed families.

Even people who manage to set healthy boundaries with their families often continue to struggle with  shame and guilt, as if they're doing something wrong or against their families.

This can be difficult to overcome on your own.  You might know on an intellectual level that what they're doing for themselves is right, but it continues to feel wrong.  This inner conflict between thinking and feeling can be exhausting.

Overcoming Guilt and Shame With Mind-Body Psychotherapy
In my experience, the most effective type of therapy to overcome the guilt and shame involved in this type of situation is mind-body psychotherapy which helps to integrate the various aspects of yourself that are in conflict.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates how mind-body psychotherapy can help someone who is struggling with this issue:

Sonia:
Sonia was born on an island in the Caribbean, and she came to the US with her parents and maternal grandparents when she was a year old.

By the time she was a teenager, Sonia, like many teens, wanted to spend more time with friends her age.  But her parents insisted that she spend most of her free time with the family.

Sonia loved her family, but she longed to be with her friends.  She pleaded with her parents to let her go out to visit friends, but her parents didn't want her visiting her friends' homes, nor did they want Sonia's friends coming over.

Both of Sonia's parents grew up in households where they had many siblings, so they didn't feel the need to make friends outside the family.  They didn't understand that Sonia, who was an only child, was lonely and needed to develop close friendships of her own.

Whenever Sonia would try to explain to her parents that she just wanted to see her friends, her parents couldn't understand why she would want to see her friends at their homes since she had just seen them at school.

When Sonia turned 16, she began sneaking out of the house at night.  Her parents thought she was in her room doing her homework, but she climbed out the fire escape in her room to go see her friends.

This went on for a while--until one evening when Sonia's mother went to her room and discovered that Sonia wasn't home.

When Sonia came back up the fire escape, she was shocked to find her mother sitting in her room.  From then on, Sonia and her parents had a lot of conflict until Sonia was old enough to go away to college.  After she left, she never moved back in.  After graduation, she shared an apartment with friends she met at college and only saw her parents occasionally.

Even though Sonia took steps to set healthy boundaries with her family so she could have a life of her own, she still felt very guilt and ashamed, as if she had let her family down.

Her parents remained rigid in their expectations and this made the occasional family visits very tense.

By the time Sonia was in her mid-20s, she was feeling increasingly guilty and ashamed, caught between doing what she knew was right for herself, but feeling like she wasn't "a good daughter." So, she came to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC to try to work out this issue.


Using a combination of Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, I helped Sonia to feel entitled to having a life of her own.  We worked to integrate the different aspects of herself which were in conflict with each other.

Sonia learned that she couldn't change her parents, but she could change herself.  Over time, as she became more comfortable with the decisions she made for herself as an adult, she also learned to have more compassion for her parents who grew up in a different time and culture.

At that point, she was better able to be compassionate because she felt comfortable with herself.

Getting Help in Therapy
Whether it's clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing or EMDR, when practiced by a licensed psychotherapist, these mind-body treatment modalities can help access the unconscious mind to heal the internal conflict so you can, not only think, but also feel that you deserve a life of your own.

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.

Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind

As I've mentioned in prior blog articles, including Mind-Body Psychotherapy: What Your Body Is Telling You, integrating the mind-body connection in therapy offers many advantages over regular talk therapy, one of them being that emotional states in the body offer a window into the unconscious mind.

Experiential Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind

What is Experiential Psychotherapy?
Experiential psychotherapy is a general name for different types of psychotherapy that integrate the mind-body connection, including: AEDP, clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy), EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, to name just a few.

How Does Mind-Body Psychotherapy Offer a Window Into the Unconscious Mind?
Many people know that dreams offer a window into the unconscious.  I enjoy working with clients' dreams in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC.  The problem is that not everyone remembers their dreams.  But everyone has access to his or her body, and a therapist who works with the mind-body connection can help psychotherapy clients access what's happening in the body in terms of embodied emotional states.

Let's take a look at an example of this with a composite case, which represents many different psychotherapy cases:  

Rita
Rita had been to several different therapists over the course of her 20s and 30s prior to coming to see me.  Although she felt she benefited from talk therapy, she also felt there was something missing that she was unable to get to in her prior experiences with therapy.

Rita came to me because she knew that, in addition to doing talk therapy and EMDR, I use Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis with my psychotherapy clients.

At first, Rita had a hard time putting her feelings into words.  But when we focused on what she was experiencing in her body, she was able to sense into her physical sensations and gradually identify the emotions that went with those physical sensations.

So, for example, when I asked Rita to sense into her body, she said she sensed a heaviness in her upper abdominal area.  I asked Rita to stay with that, as long as it felt tolerable to her.  Then, after a few minutes, she said that she sensed, within the heaviness in her upper abdomen, a hollowness.

We stayed with that hollowness and, gradually, emotions emerged.  I saw tears begin to stream down Rita's face, and she was able to say she felt very sad.  I asked Rita to stay with the sadness and, after a few minutes, she had a memory of being alone as a young child crying for her mother.

Over the next several sessions, as we continued to work with the physical sensations that Rita sensed in her body and the accompanying emotions, more memories emerged.

As we continued to work together, what emerged was early childhood memories of feeling sad in a household where Rita was raised by a single mother who worked three jobs to support them.  As a result, Rita was often alone and lonely.

As an adult, even when Rita was in a healthy, loving romantic relationship, she often felt this heavy feeling in the upper abdomen, a hollow feeling of sadness and loneliness.  Even though she wasn't alone any more, she continued to feel the unresolved emotions from her childhood.

Part of the work was helping Rita to separate "then" (her childhood experiences) from "now" (her adult life) using a combination of Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis.

Another part of the work was helping Rita heal from her earlier emotional wounds.  We did this by working with the child part of her that felt a deep longing to be loved and nurtured.

In a relaxed state, Rita, as her adult self, had an inner dialogue with her child self, expressing love and compassion for this child self.  Then, she sensed into that child part and she was able to take in the love and compassion that her adult self was giving.

I also helped Rita to imagine a nurturing parental figure who could have been there for her when she was younger.  She chose an uncle, who actually lived out of state when she was a child, but when he was around, he was loving and emotionally supportive.

With guidance in therapy, Rita sensed back into her childhood experience as a lonely child feeling her unmet emotional needs and longing.   Then, she imagined that her uncle was sitting next to her with his arm around her.  She sensed the physical sensation of his loving gesture and how that felt in her body both physically and emotionally.

Then, I helped Rita to hold onto this experience with a technique called "anchoring" in clinical hypnosis, so she could access the felt sense of this nurturing experience whenever she needed it.

Access to the Unconscious Experience With Somatic Experiencing
As I mentioned earlier, there are various types of mind-body psychotherapy that help people to access unconscious experience by sensing into what they feel in their bodies.

Different people sense into their bodies in different ways.  Many people start with what's happening to them physically.  Others have an intuitive sense.  Others close their eyes get visual images.

It doesn't matter how someone begins the process of accessing their emotional and physical states in their bodies to get to their unconscious mind.  The important thing is that the body provides a way to access the unconscious mind and it's a matter of learning how to tune in.

Learning to Tune Into the Body to Sense Physical and Emotional States
Many people need to learn how to tune into the body to sense physical and emotional states because it doesn't come naturally to them.  For clients who have difficulty, I help them with a step-by-step process that most people can learn.

I usually recommend that people read Ann Weiser Cornell's book, The Power of Focusing - A Practical Guide to Emotional Self Healing, a book that helps people to develop a felt sense of their experiences in an easy, accessible way.

Getting Help
Whether you've had prior experiences in psychotherapy or not, if you would like to have a deeper understanding of yourself and get to the root of your problems so you can heal emotionally, you could benefit from working with a licensed therapist who uses the mind-body connection in therapy.

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

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

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

Overcoming Shame: Is Shame Keeping You From Starting Psychotherapy?

Shame can be a powerful and crippling emotion.  Shame is often the underlying emotion for many people who are depressed and anxious.  Unfortunately, for many people who could benefit from psychotherapy to overcome shame, their deep sense of shame keeps them from beginning therapy.

Overcoming Shame: Is Shame Keeping You From Starting Therapy?

For adults who experience this type of deep rooted shame, the origin of their shame usually stems of unmet emotional needs in childhood experiences at an early age.

Shame Can Begin As Early As Infancy
For instance, shame can begin as early as infancy when a baby makes repeated attempts to get her mother's attention and her mother, who might be depressed, is unable to be emotionally attuned to the baby.  Examples of this type of lack of emotional attunement between mothers and babies can be seen in the attachment research of psychoanalyst Beatrice Beebe.

Overcoming Shame:  Shame Can Begin at an Early Age

The following vignette, which is a composite of many different psychotherapy cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates how detrimental shame can be and also how shame can be overcome in therapy using a mind-body oriented therapy approach:

Mary
Mary, who was an only child, grew up in a household where her mother suffered with longstanding depression.  Her father, who was a merchant marine, was usually away from home.

Even as a young child, Mary sensed that her parents never really wanted to have a child.  Her mother, Ann, made sure that Mary's basic physical needs were taken care of but, because of her depression, she had little energy to play with Mary, read a book to her, or take her to the park.

When Mary was at home, she spent most of her time by herself, and she felt lonely.  Her mother, who barely had energy to feed and clothe Mary, spent most of her time sleeping.  When Ann was awake, Mary attempted to get her attention by telling her stories about what happened in her kindergarten class that day.  She hoped to cheer her mother up, but Ann was too immersed in her depression to really listen.

As a result, Mary grew up feeling like there was something wrong with her.  Although she did well academically and she had a few close friends, as a young adult, she was very shy and felt awkward around people she was meeting for the first time.  She compared herself to other people her age and she felt there was something missing in her, but she didn't know what it was.

By the time she was in her early 20s, Mary longed to be like other women her age who seemed to be so confident around men.  But she didn't know how to overcome her shyness.  Even when men her age approached her and seemed interested, Mary would blush and become tongue tied.

Mary wanted more than anything to overcome her shyness and her sense of embarrassment.  She considered starting psychotherapy, but every time she made an appointment, she cancelled it because she felt too embarrassed to talk to a therapist.  Once, she made an appointment, promised herself that she wouldn't cancel it, but she couldn't bring herself to actually walk into the therapist's office building.  She walked around the block several times, and then she went home feeling defeated.

Overcoming Shame

Then, one day, Mary, who was feeling increasingly frustrated with her lack of progress in overcoming her problems on her own, managed to come to see me for a therapy consultation.  When she described her shyness and awkwardness around people, she was relieved to hear that this is a common problem for many people.  Since she tended to compare herself unfavorably to other people, who seemed so confident to her, she assumed that she was the only one who struggled with these feelings.

Our therapy work began with helping Mary to identify experiences that she had throughout her life, however fleeting they might be, where she had a sense of pride.  Since she did very well in school, most of these experiences involved academic achievements.  Even some of these experiences were tinged with some shame when they involved getting up in front of people to get an academic award.

Using a type of mind-body oriented therapy called Somatic Experiencing, we worked on helping to build Mary's confidence as a first step before we worked on the origin of her shame, which was rooted in her unmet emotional needs as a child.

To her credit, Mary stuck with our Somatic Experiencing work, which was gradual.  Over time, she began to work through her shame so she could begin to feel, for the first time in her life, that she was a person who was worthy of having meaningful relationships and experiences in her life.

The Courage to Come to Therapy to Heal From Shame
When someone is feeling as much shame as Mary did, it takes a lot of courage to come to therapy.  This is especially true for people who have so many unmet emotional needs from childhood.

Many people, who are shy, awkward around other people or who feel easily embarrassed, don't realize that their problems are rooted in shame from early experiences.  A person doesn't have to come from an extremely dysfunctional home to develop shame at an early age.  Shame often develops in children in much more subtle ways without parents realizing it.

Starting With a Psychotherapy Consultation
People, who are afraid to start therapy due to their shame or for other reasons, often don't realize that they can start by asking for a therapy consultation which isn't a commitment to continue coming.  A consultation gives someone a chance to talk about his or her problem in a general way, to ask questions about the therapist and how s/he works, and to get a sense if  it would be a good match.

Getting Help in Therapy
Struggling with shame-based issues is much more common than most people realize.  Some people are better than others at hiding their sense of shame so that they appear confident on the outside when, in fact, they're masking their shame.

Unresolved shame often has an adverse impact both personally and professionally, even for people who have learned to hide it.

Getting Help in Therapy

Rather than allowing shame to continue to have such a powerful effect on your life, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed psychotherapist who has experience helping therapy clients to overcome shame.  When you have overcome shame, you have a chance to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I have helped many therapy clients to overcome shame so they can lead happier lives.

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

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

Relationships: Are You Attracted to People Who Are Hurtful?

Do you find yourself attracted over and over again to people who end up hurting you?  Is it just bad luck that you keep entering into these relationships or is there a particular dynamic going on in your life that you're not recognizing?

Are You Attracted to People Who Hurtful?

Why Do People Who Want Healthy Relationships End Up Choosing People Who Hurt Them?

Most people want a healthy, loving relationship.  They don't want to be hurt and disappointed.  And, yet, many of these same people find themselves stuck in a pattern where time after time they find someone who, at first, seems like a perfect match.  But, after a while, they discover that this person who, originally, appeared to be "the one," ends up hurting them.

If most people are seeking loving relationship, why would they end up in dysfunctional relationships time after time?

The Power of Unconscious Unmet Emotional Needs From Childhood
Most of the time, there are unconscious processes operating in these situations.  The pull of these types of romantic relationships can feel like two magnets that are drawn together with such a powerful force.  In the beginning, this powerful connection adds to the feeling that "this feels so right."

Usually, what drives these powerful attractions that, in the end don't work out, are one or both person's unmet childhood needs.  In these situations, two people come together, without even realizing, based on unresolved unmet emotional needs from childhood.

When these unconscious unmet emotional needs get triggered in a romantic dynamic, they feel powerfully compelling.  Often, people will feel these strong feelings after a very short time, not realizing that what's driving these feelings are unconscious memories from the past.

The following is a fictionalized vignette based on a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed:

Nina
When Nina started therapy, her boyfriend had just ended their relationship.  This was the third relationship in  a row where things didn't work out for Nina.  She was feeling very discouraged because she was in her mid-30s, and she couldn't understand why this kept happening to her.

As far as Nina was concerned, at the beginning of all of these relationships, she was very happy.  Then, over time, Nina said, each of these men revealed other sides to their personalities that they had not revealed at the beginning.

When Nina meet her last boyfriend, Scott, she fell head over heals in love with him.  Even on that first day, she felt like she had known him all her life. There was something very familiar about him.

They moved in together after just a couple of months.  Initially, Nina felt very excited and happy about being with Scott.  She thought about him all day long and couldn't wait to see him at night.  She fantasized about getting married and having children with him.  She thought to herself that she had finally met the man of her dreams.

But by the third month, Scott seemed to change.  He was more irritable and critical of Nina.  Nina tried to appease him in every way that she could to no avail.  She couldn't believe this was happening to her again, and she assumed that, since she kept experiencing this in all her relationships, somehow, she must be doing something wrong.  But she didn't know what it was.

For the next two years, Nina exhausted herself trying to make Scott happy.  But it seemed that no matter what she did, he just seemed more and more dissatisfied.  Then, one day he packed up his things while she was out and left without warning.  He left some cash for his half of the rent, but there was no note and no explanation.  Nina tried to reach him, but he didn't respond to her calls or her email.  She was devastated.

Looking at Nina's family history, I discovered that all of Nina's boyfriends engaged in similar behavior patterns to her father, who left the family abruptly when Nina was four.  Unconsciously, Nina was playing out her childhood trauma over and over again in her adult romantic relationships.

As we talked about each of her relationships, she was able to see that there had been early warning signs from the beginning that she was in denial about all along.  In hindsight, she could see that she had gotten involved with each of these men too quickly and, in her initial excitement about the relationship, she overlooked red flags.

We also discovered that Nina had many unmet childhood emotional needs because her mother was too overwhelmed to nurture Nina as a child.  Knowing at an early age that her mother was overwhelmed, Nina pushed down her emotional needs and attempted to act like a grown up.  But this came at a tremendous cost to her emotionally.  And, in her adult romantic relationships, she was reenacting her childhood trauma.

We used Somatic Experiencing and EMDR to gradually work through her childhood trauma.  Then, Nina worked on developing healthier relationships.

Getting Help in Therapy
The composite scenario above is a common experience for adults who experienced childhood trauma.  

If you're usually attracted to people who hurt you, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed psychotherapist who works with trauma and who has experience helping clients to overcome this problem.

About Me

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

I have helped many clients to overcome their emotional trauma so they could lead more 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.

Understanding the Impact of Early Attachment on Adult Relationships

This is the fourth article in a series of blog articles about how the early attachment bond affects adult relationships.  The prior blog articles were:

How the Early Attachment Bond Affects Adult Relationships: Part 1

How the Early Attachment Bond Affects Adult Relationships: Part 2 - Insecure Attachment Styles

How the Early Attachment Bond Affects Adult Relationships: Part 3 - What Causes Insecure Attachment?

Understanding the Impact of Early Attachment Bonds

Understanding the Impact of the Early Attachment Bond
As I've discussed in prior articles, when there is a secure attachment bond between the mother and infant, both mother and child are attuned to each other.  Even though the infant can't speak, the infant picks up on nonverbal cues, including the mother's gaze (see picture below).   Infants are hard wired to bond with their primary caregivers.


When there is an insecure attachment, which usually occurs on a spectrum from difficult to traumatic,   the impact on the child will be significant.  Depending upon how out of attunement the mother is with the child, the child can grow up having difficulties forming close relationships.

Unfortunately, even when these adults come to therapy, if they see therapists who have little or no knowledge about the impact of the bonding process between mothers and children, the attachment issue can be overlooked.

Let's take a look at a hypothetical example.  As always, this is a fictionalized illustration that is made up of a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed:

Ted
Ted's mother, Mary, was 17 years old when she gave birth to Ted.  She was still in high school, and she wasn't ready to raise an infant.  Mary's parents were unwilling to help her, and Ted's father wanted nothing to do with the baby.  So, when Ted was two months months old, Mary brought him to live with her maternal grandmother, who lived out of state.  While Ted was away, Mary hoped to graduate from high school and find a job so she could support herself and Ted.

Ted's grandmother, Nina, was in her late 70s, and she suffered with arthritis.  She agreed to take Ted in because she didn't want Ted to end up in foster care and there was no one else in the family who could take care of him.

Nina was able to take care of Ted's basic physical needs in terms of food, shelter, and other basic necessities.  But she was too tired and in too much physical pain to spend time creating an emotional bond with him.

So, Ted remained in his crib most of the time.  Nina believed that if a baby cried, the primary caregiver should allow the baby to cry himself to sleep.  She believed that if she picked him up, she would spoil him.  She had never learned that babies need love and attention when they're in distress, so she had no idea how detrimental her lack of attention would be for Ted.

Ted would spend a lot of time crying in his crib and trying to get his great grandmother's attention.  After a while, he became exhausted and he would withdraw and fall asleep.

By the time Ted was one years old, Mary missed her son so much that she decided she wanted him back.  She quit school in her senior year, got a job, and she and three other friends rented an apartment together.  Then, against the advice of her family, she brought Ted back to live with her and her roommates.  It was crowded, but Mary was happy to have her son home, and she and her roommates took turns taking care of Ted.

Initially, Ted, who was accustomed to being around Nina, was frightened of being around Mary and her roommates.  Even though Nina wasn't nurturing towards him, he knew Nina and he didn't know Mary.  Mary and her roommates were strangers to him.  During the first few weeks, he crawled around Mary's apartment looking for Nina and crying when he couldn't find her.

Mary was very disappointed that Ted was frightened of her.  She had been missing him so much, and all she could think of was holding him in her arms and kissing him.  But he tended to shy away from her.  It took a while before he warmed up to her and allowed her to be loving towards him.

A few months later, two of Mary's roommates decided to move out.  Mary and her remaining roommate couldn't afford to pay the rent on the apartment.  Mary's parents refused to take her and her son in, so Mary felt she had no choice but to bring Ted back to Nina's home, and she rented a room for herself.

This back and forth pattern between Nina and Mary went on throughout most of Ted's childhood.  Ted grew up to be a shy, withdrawn child.  He had difficulty making friends, and he tended to keep to himself as a child, a teenager and a young man in his early 20s.

Ted managed to just get by in high school, and he obtained a full time job after graduation working in a department store.

By that time, Mary was in a better financial position and Ted lived with her.  She continued to try to develop a better relationship with Ted, but Ted never thought of her as his mother, even though he knew, of course, that she was his biological mother.

In his early 20s, Ted wanted very much to have a girlfriend, but he was dreaded the thought of allowing anyone to get close to him.  The result was that even though he was very lonely, he couldn't bring himself to attempt to meet women his age.

After much consideration, Ted began therapy to try to understand why he was having such difficulty trying to meet women.  His first therapist recognized that Ted was depressed, but she didn't understand how he was affected by the upheaval of moving between his mother and great grandmother as a child and how this affected his ability to form close relationships.  She referred him to a psychiatrist for anti-depressant medication, which helped somewhat.  But Ted still felt lonely and empty inside.

After a year in therapy, his therapist conceded that she wasn't able to help him, and she referred him to a more experienced therapist who happened to be knowledgeable about attachment theory.

Ted's new therapist could see that he was depressed, but after she heard his childhood history, she also understood that a major part of his problem involved early attachment issues.

His new therapist helped Ted to understand why he was so afraid of forming close relationships, even  though he was very lonely and craved a loving, nurturing relationship.  Gradually, she helped Ted to manage his fear while he took small, manageable steps to meet women.  She also helped him to work through the early trauma that caused him to feel a combination of dread and longing.

Over time, Ted was able to work through the early trauma and begin to form a close relationship with a woman he initially met online.  Things were bumpy at first because Ted was still frightened of getting close to his new girlfriend.  At times, he would pull away from her when he felt overwhelmed by fear.  But, gradually, he learned to trust her and he continued to do trauma work in therapy, he allowed himself to open up more to her.

Getting Help
If you think you might have problems with relationships due to early attachment issues, it's possible to work through these issues in therapy with a therapist who know is knowledgeable about early attachment issues, trauma, and this affects your ability to have close relationships.

Rather than continuing to struggle emotionally, you owe it to yourself to get the help you need so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, 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.

What Contributes to an Insecure Attachment Style?

I've written two prior blog articles about the early attachment bond and how it affects adult relationships:  How the Early Attachment Bond Affects Adult Relationships - Part 1 and How the Early Attachment Bond Affects Adult Relationships: Part 2 - Insecure Attachment Styles.  

Insecure Attachment Style

In this blog article, I would like to address what causes the primary caregiver, usually the mother, to have an insecure attachment style.

In my prior blog articles about attachment styles, I've discussed how important it is for the mother to be attuned to the infant.  When there is a lack of attunement due to an insecure attachment style, the child often grows up to have problems in his or her adult relationships.

As you might expect, mothers who have insecure attachment styles with their children (as described in my prior blog post) often grew up with mothers who also had insecure attachment styles, including avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized and reactive attachment styles.

Here are some of the major causes of an insecure attachment style:

• physical, emotional or sexual abuse
• physical and/or emotional neglect
• separation from a primary caregiver (illness, foster care, adoption, death, divorce)
• inconsistent caregiving
• frequent upheaval (moves or other major changes that create chaos)
• maternal depression
• maternal addiction to alcohol or drugs
• young or inexperienced mothers
• other traumatic experiences

This list is by no means exhaustive, but these are some of the major causes.

Often, these situations can occur through no fault of the mother.  For instance, a mother might become physically sick or depressed and might require inpatient treatment, which necessitates that she is away from her infant for a substantial amount of time.

Another example, which is common, is a circumstance where a mother cannot afford to raise the infant or her life isn't stable enough to raise a baby, so she might send her child to live with relatives.  Since she is concerned about the baby's physical well being, she might have no choice but to send her child away. 

However, in doing so, there would be a disruption in the bonding process between mother and child that is usually detrimental.

Children Can Have Emotionally Reparative Experiences That Help to Mitigate the Early Bonding Disruption
Despite this, many children have emotionally reparative experiences with loving relatives, even if they are separated from their mother.  Depending upon the child, these loving, nurturing experiences can help to mitigate the disruption in the mother-child bond.

In my next blog article, I will discuss why it's important to be aware of the significant impact of the early mother-child attachment bond.

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:  josephineolivia@aol.com