Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue: Part 4: Starting to Process the Trauma in Therapy

I've written three prior articles on the topic of untreated emotional trauma, including: 

Part 1:  The Negative Consequences of Untreated Emotional Trauma

Part 2: Understanding the Impact of Untreated Emotional Trauma

Part 3: Starting Therapy to Deal With Untreated Emotional Trauma.

Untreated Emotional Trauma: Starting to Process the Trauma in Therapy

To understand how, as a trauma therapist, I help clients with psychological trauma, in my last article I discussed the resourcing phase of treatment during the initial stage of therapy.  As I mentioned, the purpose of the resourcing phase is to help clients to develop internal resources, also known as coping skills, to deal with the processing phase of psychological trauma.

In this article, I'll continue with the vignette about Joe, who represents a composite of many different clients who have come for trauma therapy, and I'll look more specifically at the initial stage of processing the trauma in treatment.

Joe
Joe made progress during the resourcing phase of trauma therapy to the point where, instead of automatically lapsing into dissociation (i.e., "zoning out" or numbing himself emotionally) whenever he felt emotionally uncomfortable, he was able to tolerate remaining present more often.  There were still times when he dissociated somewhat, but he was somewhat more resilient now as compared to when he first started treatment.

He practiced the Safe Place Meditation that he learned in our prior therapy to help calm and soothe himself.  He also practiced the Square Breathing exercise I taught him to help him relax.  In addition, he mentally rehearsed positive memories from his life and noticed how focusing on these memories often shifted him from a state of anxiety to a more relaxed state.

Beyond Developing Coping Strategies:  Why Process the Trauma?
At this point, many clients often ask why, if they've learned better coping skills, they need to process the trauma.  They want to know:  Isn't it enough to be able to know how to cope when they feel upset?

Usually, what I tell clients is that, even though they've gotten better at dealing with uncomfortable feelings by developing better coping skills, the traumatic memories are still there to be triggered in their current life.

In other words, it's great to be able to calm yourself, learn to relax and shift your emotional state from one of anxiety to a more relaxed state, but you're still vulnerable to getting emotionally triggered whenever what would normal trigger you emotionally in the present.

Getting back to Joe:
Now that Joe had developed better internal resources, we were ready to process his psychological trauma which stemmed from an early childhood history with his father, who was often rageful and drunk.

As part of the earlier psychoeducational phase of our work together, Joe had already begun to develop intellectual insight into the affect that his family history had on him.  Now, it was time to help Joe to understand his trauma in a more integrated way where his understanding wouldn't be just intellectual.

In this phase of treatment, he would develop more of an integrated felt sense for the impact of the trauma and work through the trauma so it would no longer affect him.

Starting to Process Psychological Trauma
I have different ways of treating psychological trauma that are part are considered mind-body oriented psychotherapy, including EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and clinical hypnosis.

My clinical expertise told me that it would be best in Joe's case to start with EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which has a structured protocol, developed by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., in the late 1970s as a treatment specifically for trauma.

EMDR has eight phases of treatment, which you can read about in more detail on the EMDR website. Joe and I had already completed the history taking and resourcing phases of treatment, and we were ready to start the processing.

I asked Joe to bring in 10 memories that related to his traumatic experiences with his father, and after we went over these memories, I asked him which one still had the most emotional charge for him.  Joe responded immediately by choosing a memory from the time he was five years old.

He told me about the memory:  His father became enraged with him after Joe accidentally dropped a crystal vase that had been in his father's family for many years.  Joe's mother had given Joe permission to look at the vase, which his mother had placed on the dinning room table as they waited for guests to arrive for dinner.  She told Joe that he could look at it, but she also told him not to touch it.

Being a curious boy, Joe waited until his parents left the room and then he picked up the vase so he could look at it more closely.  But when his father came into the room and yelled at Joe for touching the vase, Joe got so startled that he dropped it and it shattered beyond repair.

When Joe's mother saw the father running towards Joe to hit him with his belt, she stepped between them and told the father not to hit Joe.

Then, a big argument ensued between between his parents where his father came close to hitting his mother.  But, instead, the father grabbed Joe, dragged him into another room, locked the door so his mother couldn't intervene, and he spanked Joe hard with his belt.

This was Joe's earliest traumatic memory and it also had the most emotional charge for him of the 10 traumatic memories that he brought in.

The importance of choosing an early memory with the most emotional charge is that, by working on this memory with EMDR, the work can have generalizable effects so that, ideally, a trauma therapist doesn't have to work on every traumatic memory.

As we worked on developing the EMDR protocol, which included identifying an image that represented this memory, the emotions that go with this memory, where Joe felt these emotions in his body (an important mind-body aspect of EMDR that helps to make it a more integrative experience), Joe came up with another part of the protocol, which was the negative feeling that he had about himself in relation to this memory (called the Negative Cognition in EMDR) and that was:  "I feel powerless."

Joe realized that feeling powerless was a feeling he carried around with him much of the time without even realizing it.  He also realized that this was how he felt whenever he was in social situations or when he even thought about allowing others to get close to him.  He sensed this not just in an intellectual way--he had a felt sense of it.  In other words, he felt it on a visceral level.

This is an important part of EMDR and other mind-body oriented types of therapy as compared to talk therapy.  Clients often say they have a more visceral sense of their problem when they're being treated with a mind-body oriented therapy, and this gives them a more holistic sense of their problem.

So, when we talked about how he would like to feel about himself when he completed therapy, he said, "I would like feel more empowered in my life."  So, this gave us a goal to work towards in our work together.

As part of the EMDR protocol, the trauma therapist asks the client about their current subjective experience of the memory.  So, I asked Joe how disturbing this memory was for him now on a scale of 0-10, and he said it was a "9," which is very disturbing.

When I'm doing EMDR, I often use a small device called a Tac/Audio Scan that clients hold in their hands.  It provides the bilateral stimulation in EMDR that helps to process the trauma.

So, Joe held the Tac/Audio Scan tappers in his hands and began by focusing on the image that he had chosen that represented this memory for him, which was the locked door in the room where his father dragged Joe.

An Obstacle in Processing the Trauma
Over the next few months, Joe made progress in processing this traumatic memory.  There were times when he felt the need to imagine an "ally," in addition to having me there with him helping to process the memory.  So, he imagined that his former coach and mentor was sitting next to him and he felt empowered with this imagined presence.

But, after a while, Joe began "looping" in his processing of the memory.  Even though his subjective experience of his disturbance about the memory was now a "5" instead of a "9," he couldn't seem to go beyond this.

Part of the goal of EMDR is to process the memory so it's no longer disturbing to the client, ideally getting to a subjective disturbance that the client feels as being either a 0 or 1 (on a scale of 0-10).

As we talked about what was happening for Joe at this stage of the therapy, he said that he had just realized that part of the memory was that, even though he was terrified of his father and the beating hurt, he was willing to take the beating because he felt that, by enduring the beating, he had spared his mother from getting beaten up by his father.

As an adult, Joe knew objectively that this was probably a distortion in his thinking as a child because there were plenty of times when his father hit his mother.  His father could have hit his mother on that day too if he wanted to but, on that day as a child, Joe felt he made this sacrifice for his mother.  And, now that we were processing the memory, there was a part of him that was ambivalent about letting it go.

He recognized that a part of himself felt this way even though this was probably a rationalization that he created in his own mind as a child to console himself about the beating.

This obstacle in the treatment was another example of how Joe (or anyone of us) can know something on a objective, logical level and yet, what we feel on an emotional level can be very different, and it can become an obstacle in the treatment.

I tried a common method in EMDR called a "Cognitive Interweave" where Joe tried to think of the incident as having occurred to another small boy, instead of to him:  Wouldn't he feel that this person, who is now an adult, deserves to be free of the effect of this traumatic memory?

Joe responded that he would, if it was someone else.  He felt that clearly.  But when he thought of it for himself, he couldn't overcome that part of himself that felt he had taken this beating to spare his mother from being hit by the father.

And if we processed the memory so that it was no longer disturbing, he felt that, on some level, it would take away from what he did for his mother.

Bumps in the road in trauma therapy are very common, and it helps if the trauma therapist has different ways of working to overcome these obstacles.

In a future article, I'll continue this discussion and discuss a particular intervention which is often helpful for overcoming obstacles in trauma therapy.

Getting Help
If a traumatic past is having a negative impact on you now as an adult, help is available to you if you work with a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist.

Processing the trauma will help to free you from history that is creating obstacles in your life now.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  I have helped many clients to overcome psychological trauma.

I also work adjunctively with clients who are already in therapy with a therapist that they want to remain in therapy with but who might not be trauma therapists.  

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.

Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue: Part 3: Starting Therapy

In two prior articles, I began a discussion about the effects of untreated emotional trauma:  Part 1, Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue With Negative Consequences  and Part 2 of this topic, Understanding the Impact of Untreated Emotional Trauma.

In the current article, I'm continuing the discussion about the case I began discussing the last time about Joe, which, as always, is a composite of many different therapy clients to protect confidentiality.

Joe
Joe was considering attending psychotherapy because he was having a hard time allowing people to get close to him.  At that point, he knew that something was wrong because he wanted very much to have close friends and to be in a relationship, but his fear of allowing people to get close to him was the major obstacle for him.

His emotional dilemma was that he felt trapped--his longing for emotional connection and his fear of getting close to others kept him in an internal state of conflict, and he saw no way to overcome this on his own.

Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue: Starting Therapy

For years, he had been ambivalent about starting therapy, but when he thought about whether he wanted to be stuck in this emotional dilemma of wanting but fearing closeness, he knew, no matter how fearful he felt about going to therapy, he needed to get help because he didn't want to look back on his life when he was older and regret that he remained fearful, alone and lonely.

His doctor, who had been encouraging Joe to go to therapy for several years, referred Joe to me because he knew that I'm a trauma therapist.

The Initial Stage of the Therapy Consultation
I encouraged Joe to come in for a therapy consultation to see if he felt comfortable enough with me so we could work together.  I also use this first session to get an overview of a client's problems and for the client to ask whatever questions he or she might have about the therapy process, how I work  or about my professional background as a psychotherapist.

Although Joe was anxious, he was comfortable enough to come to weekly sessions.  During the initial sessions, we discussed his his family background, which included a father who had alcohol problems and who was physically abusive.

Psychoeducation About Psychological Trauma
I knew that Joe wasn't making the connection to how his early childhood trauma was affecting him now in his adult life.  Like many people, Joe assumed that, because these problems occurred years before, they weren't connected to his current problems.

So, I started, as I usually do, with providing Joe with psychoeducation about how early trauma can affect people in their adult lives, including the connection to fears about emotional intimacy.

Understanding Psychological Trauma Intellectually vs Overcoming the Trauma
I could tell that Joe understood this intellectually, but it didn't resonate with him emotionally.

I also knew that just talking about his early emotional trauma in therapy wouldn't be enough for Joe to overcome his problems.

In other words, if we only used talk therapy, Joe would make intellectual connections and he would develop insight into his problems, which is important, but his problems probably wouldn't change.

This is the frustrating position that many therapy clients find themselves in when they're in a therapy that uses talk therapy exclusively:  They learn to understand their trauma, but little or nothing changes.

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy
In my professional opinion, Joe needed the type of therapy that would help him to connect his intellectual understanding to a felt sense of his problems.

As a psychotherapist, my experience has been that mind-body oriented therapy works best for most clients who are dealing with psychological trauma.  These types of therapy include EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy).

Developing Internal Resources
We started, as I usually do, by helping Joe to develop his internal resources, also known as coping strategies or coping skills, to prepare him to start processing the trauma (see my article about Coping Strategies in Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy to get an idea of how I help clients develop coping strategies).

Like many people who have been traumatized, Joe relied on dissociation, which is a defense mechanism to "zone out" and numb himself emotionally, whenever he felt uncomfortable.  So, we worked on helping Joe to learn to use positive coping strategies instead of dissociation.

This isn't an all-or-nothing process, but by using the internal resources that he learned in our work together, Joe began to develop enough resilience to begin to tolerate some of his discomfort and enough tolerance to begin working on his emotional trauma.

In my next article, I'll discuss the next phase of therapy, which is processing the trauma.

Getting Help
If you think emotional trauma has been in obstacle to your leading a fulfilling life, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in working with trauma.

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

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome psychological trauma.  

In addition to working with clients as a primary therapist, I also do adjunctive trauma therapy for clients who want to remain with their primary therapist, who might not be a trauma therapist.

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

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

Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue - Part 2: Understanding the Impact of Trauma

In Part 1 of my article,  Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue With Negative Consequences, I defined emotional trauma and gave examples of some of  the possible consequences of untreated trauma.  In Part 2 of this article, I discuss the problem of making a connection between the impact of childhood trauma in adult lives.

Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue: Understanding the Impact of Trauma

Problems With Understanding the Impact of Untreated Early Emotional Trauma

As I mentioned in my last article, people who have early emotional trauma from childhood, often minimize the impact of the trauma in their adult lives because they feel it happened a long time ago or they don't understand the consequences of the trauma.

People who were traumatized as children often don't make the connection between what's going on in their lives now and what happened to them when they were children.

The following vignette, which, as always, is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates the impact of childhood trauma on an adult:

Joe:

Joe, who was in his early 30s, had no close friends.  There were people that he knew from college and kept up with on Facebook, but he spent most of his free time alone and feeling lonely.

Even though he was lonely and, in many ways, he wanted to have a girlfriend and close friends, Joe had a hard time trusting people enough to allow them to get close to him.  He talked to people at work, mostly because they approached him, but he never accepted their invitations to go out afterwards to socialize because he felt shy and socially awkward.

He spent most weekends either zoning out in front of the TV or playing video games.  Sometimes, he went to visit his mother, who lived a few miles away, but he often regretted these visits because his father was frequently drunk and verbally abusive with Joe and his mother.  His father's behavior reminded Joe of  how terrified he used to be of his father when his father got into one of his frequent drunken rages and would hit him and his mother when Joe was a child.

Even though he knew that, as an adult, he could now physically restrain his father if he had to, Joe still flinched whenever his father went into a drunken tirade and came close to Joe in a menacing way.  When they were alone, his mother would tell him that his father no longer hit her and, in fact, his father wasn't in good health because of his alcoholism.

During those visits, Joe could look at his father and see that he was frail, especially compared to what an imposing and intimidating figure he used to be when Joe was a child and he felt terrified of his father.   But even though he could see this with his own eyes, deep down, he still feared his father, and Joe had a hard time understanding why he continued to feel this way when he knew, logically, that his father was no longer a real threat to him.

Joe also knew that he had a fear of most people, even people that he liked from a distance.  Even though he was lonely and part of him really yearned for an emotional connection with others, a bigger part of him was too afraid to allow anyone to get close to him, and he just couldn't understand why he felt this way.

Over time, Joe's fears got worse.  He tried to understand why he felt this way, even with people that he thought he might like to get to know better.  He didn't understand what stopped him from initiating conversations with people that he liked at work.  He knew that most people in the office seemed to like him.

He knew, logically, that they weren't people who were actually dangerous in any way.  And, yet, whenever he imagined himself taking the initiative to start a conversation with one of them or accepting an invitation to go out with the group after work, he felt frightened.  It just didn't make sense to him and it continued to be an emotional dilemma for Joe.

Joe didn't make the connection between his early childhood trauma of living in a household with a raging and abusive father and his fear of connecting with people as an adult.  But he knew something was wrong, and he began to consider whether he should see a psychotherapist.

In a future blog article, I'll continue this discussion and discuss how getting help from a licensed psychotherapist can make a difference in overcoming emotional trauma.

Getting Help
The impact of untreated trauma can take its toll in many ways, including psychologically, physically and socially.  If you have experienced emotional trauma, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional to work through the trauma so it no longer affects you and you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me:
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  I have helped many clients to overcome the impact of trauma.

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.

Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue With Negative Consequences - Part 1

Untreated emotional trauma is a serious issue with negative consequences.  But many people try to minimize the effect of their trauma by trying to "forget it" or "ignore it."  They're often in denial about how their untreated trauma is affecting them now because they don't understand it and they don't recognize the consequences.

Often, their attitude is, "It happened a long time ago, so why should I be concerned about it now?"  In this article, I'll define emotional trauma and some of its symptoms.  In future articles, I'll address why it's important to get help for emotional trauma in psychotherapy with a licensed mental health professional.

Many People Who Were Traumatized Are in Denial About the Impact of the Trauma on Their Lives

What is Emotional Trauma?
There are many experiences that can lead to emotional trauma, including:

• physical abuse, emotional or sexual abuse
• witnessing domestic violence as a child
• living in a family where one or both parents have an alcohol or substance abuse problem or other compulsive or addictive problem, including gambling
• being removed from a childhood home
• having a parent or close relative who is incarcerated
• living in a family with serious financial problems
• loss of close family members or friends, especially at an early age in childhood
• medical problems
• disabilities
• being bullied
• experiencing a natural disaster
• living through a war

Even when many years have passed since the original trauma, untreated trauma can result in people developing the following symptoms:

• insomnia
• anxiety
• depression
• fear and a sense of foreboding
• alcohol or drug problems
• sexual addiction
• workaholism
• eating disorders
• problems with anger management
• irritability
• impatience
• avoiding other people/social isolation
• feeling unlovable
• a sense of hopelessness 
• a sense of helplessness
• low self esteem
• being emotionally numb or "shutdown"
• problems with dissociation or feeling disconnected from other people and the environment
• medical problems, including autoimmune disorders
• problems trusting others
• fear of getting involved in relationships and friendships
• getting involved in emotionally or physically abuse relationships
• being too passive
• being too rigid
• problems concentrating
• problems in school
• problems holding onto a job
• problems with authority figures
• legal problems
• engaging in risky behavior
• phobias
• obsessive behavior
• being overly protective with their children
• having emotional blind spots for abuse or other problems that might be occurring to their children

The list above is just some of the many problems that can result from untreated emotional trauma.

Untreated Trauma Can Result in Alcoholism or Drug Abuse

Untreated Trauma Can Result in Insomnia

Untreated Trauma Can Result in Workaholism

Very often, the people who experienced trauma at a young age don't make the connection between the early trauma and the problems they're having now.

They don't understand that there's a connection between their current problems and their early trauma.

Many people who have been traumatized just feel resigned to their history, and their attitude is, "That's just the way it was."

Untreated Trauma Often Result in Choosing an Abusive Spouse

Dissociation: Compartmentalization of the Traumatic Experience
Often, when they were growing up, there was no one available to let them know that what they were going through was traumatic.  There was no one to help them, so they did the best they could as children under the circumstances.

Coping with their trauma as children often meant compartmentalizing or dissociating their traumatic experiences.  Their dissociation probably helped them to cope with what was going on at the time because it numbed their emotional pain.  But, even though dissociation might have helped them, to a certain extent, from feeling the full impact of the emotional pain, inevitably, it has consequences for them as adults.

In future articles, I'll continue discussing why it's so important to work through emotional trauma in therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you experienced emotional trauma, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in helping therapy clients to overcome trauma.  Working through trauma in psychotherapy can help you to free yourself from your traumatic history.

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

One of my specialties in my psychotherapy private practice is helping clients to overcome trauma.

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.

Workplace: Coping with a Difficult Boss

At some point in your career, unless you're very lucky, you will probably have to deal with a difficult boss. Knowing how to deal with a difficult boss is essential to your well being and the future of your career.

Coping With a Difficult Boss

In this post, I'll consider certain types of bosses that most people would describe as "difficult" and provide some suggestions that you might find helpful. Since there are so many different kinds of difficult bosses, I'm sure I won't cover everything, and your comments are valuable so that I can include more information in the future.

It's also important that, since no one can truly understand a situation with a difficult boss unless you're in it, just like anything else, you need to use your judgement about your particular situation as to whether my recommendations would work for you.

Let's start out with certain premises. First, it's important to understand that one person's opinion about a boss might be very different than another's, so that what you might consider to be "difficult" others might find appealing. Second, it's possible, as hard as this might sound, that your difficult boss might actually think that he or she is doing a very good job. Your boss might lack any kind of self awareness about his or her behavior. Also, it's possible that this behavior might actually be encouraged by his superiors. The other factor to consider is whether or not you're contributing to the situation by your own behavior. This is an especially difficult thing to acknowledge. So, you need to look at your own behavior in the situation and be honest with yourself about your role in the situation and how you might need to change yourself in order to change the situation.

What is a Difficult Boss?
As previously stated, one person's idea of a difficult boss might be the ideal for someone else. It can be very subjective. However, here's a few of the most common "difficult boss" categories that I usually hear about in my office. Recognize that, for simplicity's sake, these are stereotypes. People are more complex than stereotypes and, to a certain extent, what you're dealing with might be different or a combination of several "types."

The Micromanager

The micromanager usually likes to feel in control of the most mundane aspects of a project. Often, he or she is insecure and cannot allow competent staff to carry out their duties without having staff constantly coming back to him or her at every step of the way to get approval. He or she can bog down projects with unnecessary meetings, sign offs, telephone calls, and other time wasters and, generally, annoy the staff with his or her need to oversee every little detail.

The Mircomanager

The Hands Off manager
The hands off manager is just the opposite of the micromanager. He or she is usually disengaged from the work and the staff. He gives little direction and leaves the staff wondering what he wants with regard to goals and objectives. Sometimes, he might not know or he might think that he is allowing his staff to take charge. However, the effect is often inefficient and ineffective if the staff "guesses" wrong and must waste time and effort redoing a project.

The Fault Finder

The fault finder is similar to the micromanager and some people consider this type of manager to be a subset of that category. The fault finding boss is usually very critical and looks for what's wrong most of the time and gives little or no credit for what's right. This type of boss can demoralize the staff quickly. He or she might look for the smallest mistake to point out, possibly overlooking a generally excellent job. This might be because his own level of competency is limited and he cannot judge the project on anything more than the smallest details or it might be his character. Whatever the reason, after a while, the staff will often lose their motivation to do a good job because it is almost never recognized. This, in turn, can make the fault finder even more negative.

The Indecisive Manager
The indecisive manager cannot make up his mind what he wants. As a result, he either gives little or no direction (similar to the hands off manager) or he keeps changing his mind. The indecisive manager is often insecure or he might be inexperienced. Possibly, he was thrown into his position with little or no training and he is not really competent for his job. The result is that he will often frustrate the staff with changes in direction or goals for a project, wasting time and effort.

The Boss who Takes All the Credit

The boss who takes all the credit for your ideas and your work, giving you little or no credit, is often a manipulative and insecure person. If he was not insecure about his own position, he would be generous enough to give you credit. He is often the boss who that will go to his superiors, without your knowledge, and claim responsibiliity for your ideas.

The Bully

Bullies are one of the most difficult types of bosses to deal with on the job. Often, they know that they're bullying the staff and either they don't care or they think that this is an effective way to get people to do their jobs or they just don't know any other way. These types of bosses are usually insecure and angry in general. They might not act this way at home with their spouses because their spouses might not put up with it and they might be very accommodating with their own superiors, but when they come to the office, they enjoy having power over their staff. They might yell or scream, demean people in staff meetings or be hyper critical. The bully gets off on power and control. Just like any other bully, like the schoolyard bully, there's often a scared person underneath it all who is hiding his fear by bullying his subordinates around.

Also see article: HR, It's Time to Show Bullies the Exit

The Sexual Harasser
Sexual harassment is a big topic. It can take many forms. It can range from inappropriate comments to be a "quid pro quo" situation where your manager offers you a raise or a promotion if you have sex with him. If you are being sexually harassed by your manager and if you work for a large company, you can speak with your Equal Employment Opportunity Officer to get help. Sexual harassment is against the law and it often does not stop unless you take steps--whatever steps you decide to take. If you're in a small company, you can go to your local, State or Federal EEOC agency to get help. Only you can decide the best course of action for your particular situation, but you should educate yourself as to your options. Go to your local, State or Federal EEOC website to get information. You might decide to leave, if that's an option for you.

I'm sure you can think of other types of difficult bosses.

How to Handle the Difficult Boss
Once again, you know your situation best. Other than the "sexual harasser" and "the bully" who might require you to go above his head or outside your company for help, if you think that your manager doesn't realize the effect he or she is having on you, consider whether this is someone that you can talk to privately to discuss the situation. If you think your manager would be open to it, ask him or her for a convenient time when you can talk privately. I'm stressing "privately" because a public confrontation is usually a bad idea. It might make you feel good at the time, but the repercussions are usually bad. First, your manager will be humiliated and won't hear what you have to say. Second, you'll be seen as someone who doesn't know how to handle difficult situations. Third, you might get fired.

Assuming that your manager is open to it and schedules a time for you, organize your thoughts before the meeting by writing down what you want to discuss. You don't have to discuss every time and every situation. This would probably not be effective. However, a few examples would suffice. Also, rather than just focusing on what's wrong (like the critical boss), try to find some things you think are positive, if you can. In addition, if you have some suggestions as to how the situation might improve, talk about them, once again, if you think your manager would be receptive to it.

If you think that speaking to your manager might make things worse because he or she cannot tolerate hearing any complaints, then you need to decide how to proceed. Is there a Human Resources Department? Do you have confidence in them? Do they have any authority or power to change the situation? Are there other colleagues who are experiencing the same problems with this manager? In certain situations, it might be better to go as a group rather than your going alone. However, in other situations, you might be perceived as "a troublemaker" if it gets out that you're the one who organized people. So, once again, you must use your judgement.

There are some situations with difficult bosses that are not likely to be improved for a variety of reasons. One might be that this is the culture of the particular workplace where you are and these problems go to the top. Another might be that your boss is the head or the owner of the company and he feels that he can do whatever he wants. Another reason might be that talking it out with an insecure or angry boss or with his boss or the Human Resources Dept. could make things worse. Your boss might never trust you again and might try to take steps to get you fired.

It's important for you to be able to "read" the particular situation that you're in and decide if it's worth it to stay or if you should leave. There might be particular reasons why you're staying for a while--maybe you're close to retirement or the job market is not good or you know you'll need to take Family Medical Leave soon and you won't get it immediately at a new company. There can be so many different reasons. That's why it's a very personal and individual decision.

One important factor to consider is how this boss or this job is affecting your self esteem and overall well being. If you feel that working under your particular circumstance is having a detrimental effect on your self worth or affecting your relationships at home because you come home stressed out and upset on most days, then it might be worthwhile to start looking for another job.

Hopefully, your encounters with difficult bosses will be few and far between in a long, successful career. However, if you feel that you are stuck and need support on how to deal with a difficult boss, you might consider going to a licensed mental health professional who is experienced in this area and who can help you to sort out your feelings and options and strategize on what to do.

And if, by chance, you recognize yourself as being a manager in one of the categories discussed in this post and you want to change your behavior for yourself as well as your staff, you can benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional. More and more, companies are less willing to tolerate managers who have poor interpersonal skills, so you, your company, and your staff could benefit from your getting help.

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

One of my specialities is helping clients to deal with career and workplace issues.

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 or email me.

Making Changes: Overcoming the "Inner Voice of Negative Prediction"

When you're trying to make positive changes in your life, whether it's to improve your diet, lose weight, become a successful nonsmoker, return to school to complete your education or whatever changes you might want to make, very often, one of the main obstacles is "the inner voice of negative prediction."

Making Changes: Overcoming the "Inner Voice of Negative Prediction"

What is the "Inner Voice of Negative Prediction"
"The inner voice of negative prediction" is that internal voice that tells you that you can't do it and says things like, "If you try to improve your diet, you're going to fail just the way you have every other time so you might as well not even try" or if you want to become a successful nonsmoker, it might say, "If you give up cigarettes, you're going to become extremely anxious, overeat and get fat, so don't do it."

I believe that the term "inner voice of negative prediction" was originally coined by Al Pesso in his psychomotor psychotherapy theory (http://www.pbsp.com ).

Often, this internal negative voice has been a part of your inner world for a long time and it becomes an obstacle in whatever positive changes you try to make. But instead of berating that inner voice, it's often better to find out what that inner voice wants. Maybe that negative or insecure part needs reassurance in much the same way that an insecure child might need reassurance.

Getting Help:  How Clinical Hypnosis Can Help
When clients come to me to try to make changes in their lives and their "inner voice of negative prediction" starts getting in the way of making those changes, I often find it helpful to address the needs of that part in hypnosis.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool for making positive changes. Through hypnosis, my clients get to sense that part of themselves that is holding them back and to soothe that part.

Overcome the "Inner Voice of Negative Prediction"

Very often, when my clients see themselves in their minds' eye in a hypnotic state taking care of that insecure part, the part calms down, just as an insecure child would, and stops making "negative predictions."

When that inner part calms down, then it's usually possible to make whatever changes you want to make in your life.

If you want to make changes in your life, you could benefit from hypnosis.

About Me:
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and EMDR therapist. I have helped many clients to make positive changes in their 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.

EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough

Many people who come to talk therapy with problems find relief and healing by talking to a licensed psychotherapist in either psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) and other forms of regular talk therapy. They gain insight into their problems and learn to change their thinking and behavior so that they lead happier lives.

EMDR: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough

However, for many clients in psychotherapy, regular talk therapy only goes so far and it doesn't alleviate their problems. These clients might gain an intellectual understanding of their problems and maybe, if they're in psychodynamic psychotherapy, they even learn to understand the underlying issues that caused the problems in the first place. Under the best of circumstances, they might even be able to make some changes, but the underlying problems remain and continue to get triggered in new situations. In other words, these clients are not really healed. Often this is not a reflection on the psychotherapist's skills or the client's willingness to change. It often has more to do with the limitations of talk therapy with certain problems, especially if there is trauma involved.

What is Trauma?
When we talk about trauma, it's important to know that not all trauma is the same. Like most emotional problems, it's a matter of degree. The various types of trauma are on a large spectrum from smaller trauma to bigger trauma.

Trauma doesn't have to be posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), like when a soldier is traumatized at war or when a client has been raped or sexually abused, to be considered traumatic. Trauma also includes less severe problems like getting into a car accident where you are not hurt physically but afterwards you're too afraid to drive again. Or, maybe you were in an airplane where there was a lot of turbulence and, even though you were not physically injured, you now have a fear of flying.

Another example of a form of trauma that doesn't involve PTSD but which can adversely affect you is if you're too afraid to get involved in romantic relationships because you were so humiliated as a child that you have low self esteem.

What all of these examples of trauma have in common is that they have had a negative impact and have caused impairment to everyday functioning.

When regular talk therapy is not enough, EMDR (Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing) as well as clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy) are often much more effective in healing both small and big trauma. In this post I'll focus on EMDR.

What is EMDR Therapy?
In one of my earlier posts, I defined EMDR (see the May 31, 2009 post). To understand EMDR, it's important to know that our experiences are stored in memory networks in our brains. These memory networks are made up of thoughts, images, emotions and body sensations related to each particular experience. As we form new memories, they are organized in related memory networks around the earliest memories.

So, for instance, if a child is bitten by a dog, a memory is formed in his memory network around this experience that would include the bodily sensations of being bitten, the emotional fear, the sound of the dog barking, the image of the dog lunging at him, the image of blood on his leg, the image of his mother yelling at the dog to get away as she came running towards him, and even the scents that were around him.

As he gets older, he might not have a conscious awareness of this memory, especially if he was too young to talk when he was bitten by the dog, but that first memory is still stored in his memory network. When he's older, if he hears a dog barking, it would probably trigger the emotions and sensations associated with that earlier memory, and he would be afraid. Or if he sees a dog, even a friendly one, that earlier memory will be triggered with all of the associated fears. He might not have a conscious memory of that first experience, but as an adult, when he gets triggered by new situations, he would feel an inexplicable fear ("Why am I so afraid of this dog? He's not doing anything to me"). So, even though there might not be an explicit memory of that ealier experience that he can recall, what's actually happening is that the earlier experience gets triggered in his brain and he experiences all of the same fears that he experienced when he was bitten.

In the example above, since the earliest experience has not been processed, it forms a blockage in the memory network so that the traumatic experience remains in the network waiting to be triggered under certain circumstances.

How Does EMDR Help?
EMDR helps clients to process unresolved emotional issues, whether they're related to a single incident or to ongoing problems where emotional needs were not met. A trained EMDR therapist helps clients to process unresolved emotional issues using a method called Bilateral Stimulation (BLS).

EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough

There are several forms of BLS that could involve alternating right-left eye movements, tapping, listening to music using head phones where the sound of the music moves back and forth from the right to left ear, and other methods. When these alternating right-left visual, tactile, or audio techniques are used along with the EMDR protocol, they help clients to process and resolve these experiences on a level that regular talk therapy often cannot do.

EMDR is used all over the world for all types of trauma. It is one of the most researched forms of psychotherapy that has been shown to be effective for many different types of trauma and unresolved emotional issues. Not only is it usually more effective, but it often works faster than traditional psychotherapy.

Getting Help in EMDR Therapy

If you've found that regular talk therapy has not been enough to help you with your problems, you might want to consider EMDR (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

About Me
I'm a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and  EMDR therapist.  

I have helped many clients overcome longstanding emotional issues that did not respond to regular talk therapy using EMDR and clinical hypnosis.

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.

Also, see my article:  EMDR Self Help Book