Managing Your Stress: What to Do If You Are Experiencing Workplace Burnout?

In my two prior articles,  Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout and What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?, I began addressing workplace burnout in terms of the consequences to both employees and employers as well as some telltale signs to watch out for to recognize burnout in yourself.  In this article, I'll begin to address what you can do if you're experiencing workplace burnout.

Managing Your Stress:  What to Do If You Are Experiencing Workplace Burnout

Of course, everyone and every situation is different, so no list of suggestions will work for everyone.

Generally, in my opinion, as a psychotherapist who has worked with many clients who have experienced burnout, the following suggestions are usually helpful (in no particular order):

• Develop an Increased Awareness About Yourself:  The ancient Greek aphorism, "Know thyself" is an important concept when it comes to avoiding burnout as well as in other aspects of life.   Many people develop full-fledged burnout because they have little to no awareness of themselves on a physical and emotional level, so burnout, which takes a while to develop, can seem to sneak up on them.   So, it's important to recognize the signs of workplace burnout in yourself.  Also, even for many people, who actually do recognize the signs of burnout, they're so accustomed to plowing ahead that they override their own good judgment about when to stop working and take a break.

• Take Breaks at Work:  For many people, it might seem counter-intuitive, but the old saying "less is more" is fitting when it comes to workplace burnout.  Rather than pushing yourself to work through lunch and forgo taking breaks during the day, you can actually be more productive as well as avoid burnout if you take breaks during the day at work.  Taking a much-needed break during the day, going for a walk at lunch or even taking a few minutes to stretch and breathe can help you to relax and regroup.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout:  Take Breaks at Work

• Take Time Off From Work to Go on Vacation:  Many people choose to give up vacation days to remain at work.  As a nation, Americans actually give up millions of vacation days a year, which is a big mistake, especially if you're hoping to avoid burnout.  If you treat yourself like you're a machine, you're going to break down.  And even machines break down without proper care.  Not only will going on vacation help you to relax and regroup, it often gives you an new perspective about work and life in general, which can make you more creative and productive.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Take Vacations

• Develop Stress Management Strategies:  Whether you choose to go to the gym, yoga class, meditation class or whatever activities you enjoy, it's important to develop effective stress management strategies, especially if you have a stressful job and you hope to avoid burnout.  When clients come to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, I often work with them to help them develop healthy coping and stress management strategies, including learning to meditate and engage in stress-reducing breathing techniques.

• Cultivate and Maintain Close Personal Relationships:  As human beings, we are born to bond and attach with significant others.  Initially, we bond with our primary caregivers, which in most cases is our mother, and later on, we learn to develop significant friendships and relationships outside the family.  When people spend too much time on work-related activities, one of the first things to go is the time they spend with significant others, including spouses, children and friends.  Aside from the enjoyable aspects of close relationships, we need the love and support from those relationships and they need us, so it's important to develop and maintain these relationships in order to maintain a sense of well-being.

• Develop and Engage in Self Care Strategies  Self care is made up of many different aspects, including:  getting enough rest, eating properly, getting exercise, and other things that are particularly meaningful and nurturing for you (see my article:  Self Care: Feeling Entitled to Take Care of Yourself).

• Develop Realistic Expectations of What You Can and Can't Accomplish at Work:  Having unrealistic expectations about what you can and can't accomplish at work is a sure sign that you might be heading for workplace burnout if you're not already there.  This is a particular problem for ambitious high achievers experienced in the workplace as well as college graduates who are beginning their first job.  College grads, who were accustomed to being in an intellectually and emotionally stimulating environment in college, are often surprised to discover that even the most interesting job can have certain required mind-numbing aspects to it.  This often leads to disappointment and, at times, to burnout.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Be Realistic About What You Can and Cannot Do

• Be Assertive:  Depending upon your work environment, you might need to learn to tactfully say "no" every so often when you know that accepting an assignment or participating in an extra project will lead to burnout.  Of course, this assumes that you have enough of an awareness of yourself and you place a high level of importance on self care.  If it's not possible to say "no" because doing so would lead to losing your job, then you might want to consider the next category below, re-evaluating your career.

• Re-Evaluate Your Career:  Before you begin a particular career, you might assume that you know what's involved, but it's usually only when you might start to realize that what you expected and what it turned out to be are two very different things.  I had a friend who became a nurse years ago because she wanted to "help people."  She had a wonderful experience in nursing school.  But when she became a hospital nurse, she discovered that what she wanted and what it turned out to be were completely different.  After trying different work environments, she realized that it wasn't any particular environment--the problem was that nursing, while being a wonderful profession, just wasn't for her.  So, she left nursing and became a licensed massage therapist, and she discovered that she loved it and she was better suited for this profession.  So many people think that they have to stick it out in a profession where they've unhappy.  They feel ashamed, as if it's their fault.  But life is short and if you have the option of doing what you would like, it's better to re-evaluate your career and take steps to do what makes you happy.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Re-Evaluate Your Career

• Recognize Your Profession Might Have Changed and It's Not What You Want Anymore:  Another reason why people often re-evaluate their careers is that their field might have changed over time.  Many medical doctors, under the strain of significant changes in the health care field, have re-evaluated their career choices and choose a different career or, depending upon their particular situation, have opted to retire.

Future Articles Related to Workplace Burnout
Workplace burnout is a huge topic and a significant problem for many employees.  Since many of the issues I've raised in this article are broad, I'll be addressing some of them in future articles.

Getting Help in Therapy
We all need help sometimes when going it alone is too difficult.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're concerned that you might be burning out at work or you've already developed full-fledged burnout, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience in helping clients to overcome this problem.

Working with a licensed therapist with expertise in this area, you can learn to take care of yourself and lead a happier 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 in my psychotherapy practice to avoid or overcome both personal and professional burnout.

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.

Managing Your Stress: What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?

In a prior article, Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout, I discussed the consequences for workplace burnout for both employees and employers.  In this article, I'm focusing on how you, as an employee, can recognize the telltale signs of workplace burnout.

Managing Your Stress:  What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?

Telltale Signs of Burnout
As I mentioned in my prior article, burnout doesn't occur overnight.  It usually occurs over a span of time, often without a person even realizing it, so it's important to recognize the telltale signs of burnout (outlined below) to avoid experiencing full-fledged burnout:

• Exhaustion:  Feeling emotionally and physically tired all or most of the time.  You feel like you have little or no energy even after you've rested or slept

• Problems Paying Attention or Concentrating:  Prolonged stress that leads to burnout can create cognitive problems related to paying attention or concentration.  When relentless stress that causes burnout takes hold and you don't realize what's happening, it can be frightening, especially if you didn't have these cognitive problems before.

• Lack of Motivation :  Burnout can lead to your feeling that nothing you do will make a difference.  If burnout is severe, you might feel helpless and hopeless to effect change in your work or in yourself.

• Frustration and Cynicism:  Over time, burnout can cause you to feel frustrated and cynical about your work and life in general, which also affects your motivation.

• Not Taking Care of Yourself:  Burnout can lead to your not getting enough rest, poor sleep, poor eating habits, poor health, and overall poor self care.  Rather than maintaining a healthy and nurturing social life with people who are important to you in your personal life, you might be so focused on work that you forget to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

• Obsession With Work:  When you're not maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal life and not taking care of yourself, chances are good that you're obsessed about work even when you're not at work so that you don't get a break from work stressors, which is so important to recharging.

• Problems With Work Performance:  When you're obsessed with work and you're not getting enough downtime, your work performance can suffer.  There have been many studies that show that employees' work performance is better when they take breaks.

• Health Problems:  When you don't take care of yourself and you're experiencing burnout, you can develop stress-related health problems, including high blood pressure, heart problems, digestive problems and other related health problems.

Managing Your Stress:  Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout: Health Problems

• Mental Health Problems:  Anxiety and depression are common problems as you become overwhelmed by burnout.  Anxiety and depression (or both) can make coping with workplace burnout all the more difficult, especially if these mental health problems remain untreated in therapy.

• Interpersonal Problems at Work: It's easy to see that if you're having problems with the issues listed above, you might become impatient and irritable with your boss or with coworkers, especially if you're suffering with the symptoms of burnout. 

• Interpersonal Problems at Home:  Likewise, when you're burnt out, it's very hard to leave work stressors at work, so when you get home, you could be snappy with your spouse or your children.  You might feel too exhausted to interact with them, which can create problems in your family relationships (see my article:  Workplace Stressors:  Are Your Workplace Stressors Affecting Your Family?)

In a future article about workplace burnout, I'll discuss some things you can do if you recognize that you have some or all of telltale signs listed above.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I discussed in my prior article, people often wait until they're experiencing full-fledged burnout (all or most of the symptoms listed above) before they seek help.

Getting Help in Therapy

Getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients with career or work-related issues can make all the difference between avoiding or overcoming workplace burnout.

If you identify with many of the telltale signs of burnout, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get help so 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.

One of my specialities is helping clients with career issues, and I have helped many clients to learn how to manage stress and develop healthy stress management strategies to avoid or overcome workplace burnout.

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.

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

People often come to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC about career and work-related issues.  One of the biggest issues that many people are struggling with today is how to cope with the ever increasing demands at the workplace without burning out.

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

What is Burnout?
Burnout is a chronic state of stress that can lead to physical and emotional exhaustion.

Burnout isn't something that happens overnight.  It usually occurs over time.

Unfortunately, especially among high achievers who are ambitious and driven, people often don't realize that they're suffering from the effects of burnout until they experience serious negative consequences.

When someone is experiencing full-fledged burnout, he or she has difficulty functioning personally as well as professionally.  In the most severe cases, they might not be able to function at all.

Whether you work in finance, healthcare, social services, education or any other field, burnout has become a serious problem which has negative consequences for employees as well as employers.

Negative Consequences for Employers:

• increased absenteeism
• increased staff turnover
• increased inefficiency
• increased costs (in the billions)
• increased Workers Compensation claims
• decreased productivity
• decreased morale
• decreased quality of service
• decreased customer satisfaction and increased complaints
• decreased creativity and innovation

Negative Consequences for Employees:

• increased stress
• increased health problems, including sleep problems
• increased mental health problems, including anxiety and/or depression
• increased sense of autonomy and a sense of helplessness
• increased alcohol and substance abuse problems as well as other addictive behavior
• increased marital problems as work stressors spill over into home life
• decreased work satisfaction
• decreased camaraderie among staff

Employers Have a Responsibility to Help Employees Avoid or Overcome Workplace Burnout
Since the consequences of burnout has such a significant impact for employees and employers, it's important for organizations to create a healthy work environment to avoid burnout or, if burnout is already an issue, to find creative ways to address it (more about this in future articles).

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

Employees Can Develop Stress Management Strategies to Deal With Workplace Burnout
Since it's important for employees to learn ways to manage their stress to avoid burnout, I often address this issue in therapy sessions with clients, who are either suffering from the consequences of burnout or are on the verge of burning out, by teaching them tools for managing their stress including, among other things, learning to balance their work and home life and learning breathing and meditation techniques.

In future articles, I'll address what employers and employees can do to deal with workplace burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy
People often wait until they're mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted before they get help for burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy

At that point, they might already be feeling the effects of poor health and mental health due to prolonged stress and exhaustion.

Often, by the time people begin therapy, their relationships with family members are suffering due to bringing their work stressors home (see my article:  Workplace: Are Your Work Stressors Affecting Your Family?)

Rather than wait, it's better to get help early on to learn how to manage your stress as well as addressing any work issues that could be triggering personal issues or vice versa.

Getting help early can help you to avoid burnout and thrive both personally and professionally.

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients with career issues.

I have worked with many clients to help them avoid or overcome workplace burnout.

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 or email me.

Also see my article:  Managing Your Stress: What Are the Signs of Workplace Burnout?

Do You Remember What It Was Like to Have Fun in Your Relationship? Try a Little Playfulness

When you're in a long term relationship, it's easy to become bogged down with routines and responsibilities.  You can both get to the point where you feel so weighed down and bored that you forget the love and joy that brought the two of you together in the first place.  But you don't have to remain mired in old routines and boredom.  You can recapture some of the joy you felt in the early days of your relationship by bringing back fun and playfulness into your relationship.

Remember What It Was Like to have Fun in Your Relationship?  Try a Little Playfulness

A relationship that's serious all the time isn't enjoyable.  Over time, irritability, anxiety and a sense of being overwhelmed can erode an otherwise good relationship.

If the mood between you and your spouse tends to be heavy and serious all of the time, you're bound to become annoyed and impatient with each other.  This can lead to boredom, arguments and a feeling of estrangement between the two of you.

If this is what's happening to you and your spouse, you need to put some fun back into your relationship.

Remember "Fun?"
Do you remember what it was like to have fun with your spouse?  No?  Think back to what the two of you enjoyed doing in the past.

Over time, have you stopped doing the activities that were fun and nurturing in your relationship?

If so, maybe now is the time to talk to your spouse and choose a few activities that you used to like to do in the past and make plans to do them again.

Did you used to like to go dancing, biking or ice skating?  Have you given up these activities over time because you let all of your routines crowd them out of your schedule?

Why not make time for at least one of those activities and bring some light hearted fun back into your relationship?

Mary and Bob (a composite vignette of many cases):
Bob and Mary were married for over 25 years when they came to my psychotherapy private practice in NYC.

Their only son, Bill, moved out of state the year before to take a full time job after he graduated college.

Even though they loved their son dearly, prior to his moving out, they had been looking forward to the day when he would be on his own.  But when that day came, they both felt unprepared for the changes that it brought.

They felt a little awkward around each other without Bill at the dinner table every night talking excitedly about his plans for the future.  Neither of them realized, until he was gone, how much their lives centered around their son's life.  And now that he was gone, they each felt a void (see my article: Coping With the Empty Nest Syndrome).

At first, they each filled their spare time with individual projects around the house.  But, after a while, they realized that they were avoiding each other.  Neither of them felt any animosity towards the other.  They just felt that, aside from Bill being gone, "something was missing" from their relationship.

After a few sessions, it became evident that both of them were bored and they felt they didn't have much to look forward to in their relationship.

It was clear that, basically, they had a solid relationship--they just needed to learn to bring some fun and playfulness back into their relationship.  But when I mentioned this to them, they both looked at me as if I had lost my mind!  Bob turned away, and Mary said in a sarcastic tone, "Fun?  What's that?"

Undaunted, I persisted to recite back to them what they told me their average week was like:  Go to work, come home, have dinner, do chores, zone out in front of the TV, and go to bed.  Weekends were loaded with more chores and more mindless TV.  And neither of them could even remember the last time they had sex.

After they heard me reflect back their routines, they both agreed that it was no wonder that they each felt cranky and bored.

So, we began exploring what they each liked to do when they first got together.  We started with the ground rule that they each had to be respectful of what the other person brought up.  No groans or eye rolls.

After a few false starts where neither of them could remember what they liked to do in the early days, Mary said, somewhat sheepishly with a nervous laugh, "We used to have a lot of sex."  Bob looked away in embarrassment, so I told him that it's important to be able to talk about sex in couples counseling (see my article:  The Importance of Talking About Sexual Problems in Your Psychotherapy Sessions).

I often use humor, when appropriate, in therapy sessions (see my article: Humor Can Be An Effective Tool in Therapy).  Humor helped Bob and Mary to open up more and come up with suggestions of things they used to like to do as well as some new activities they wanted to try.

Do You Remember What It Was Like to Have Fun in Your Relationship? Try a Little Playfulness

They even began to make some tentative attempts to flirt with each other, awkwardly at first, and then with more ease.

Flirtation, which is a form of playfulness, helped them to rekindle their sex life, which was emotionally and physically gratifying for both of them.

After a few months, they looked like a different couple--more gregarious and even younger looking.  They were worrying less about their chores (Mary even joked about not worrying about the "dust bunnies" under the couch as she normally would before) and having more fun.

Putting Fun and Playfulness Back in Your Relationship

Not only were they having more fun, but they felt closer to each other than they had in many years.

Tips For Bringing Back Fun and Playfulness Into Your Relationship
Have you and your spouse forgotten how to have fun?

Here are some suggestions:

Bring humor back into your relationship:

• Watch funny movies
• Go to a comedy club
• Play games
• Tell jokes
• Change your perspective and try to see the humorous side to life's small challenges
• Learn to laugh more
• Allow yourself to be "silly" without judging yourself or your spouse

Choose activities that you both enjoy:

• Dust off those dancing shoes and hit the dance floor
• Go for a walk out in nature
• Take cooking lessons
• Learn yoga
• Sign up for art classes

Lighten Up:

• Don't get into arguments over petty issues
• Do role plays where you pretend to be different people
• Use your imagination and get creative

Getting Help in Couples Therapy
Some couples need help to get out of their own way in order to bring back fun and playfulness into their relationship.

Sometimes, there are certain issues that need to get worked out in the relationship before each person can feel comfortable with letting go to have fun.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

If this is the case in your relationship, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who works with couples and who has experience with helping couples to learn to have a loving and fulfilling relationship again.

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

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

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

Overcoming Fear of Success Linked Unconsciously to Fear of Being Disloyal to Your Family

Many clients come to therapy because they struggle with achieving successful completions.  This difficulty can involve almost anything from a writer's struggles to complete a story to a student's struggles to complete high school or college.

Fear of Success Linked Unconsciously to Fear of Being Disloyal to Your Family

Regardless of the particular issue involved, people with this fear often experience unconscious internal conflict about achieving a successful completion.  In this article, I'll address a particular type of fear which involves fear of success linked unconsciously to fear of being disloyal to the family.

Unconscious Fear of Being Disloyal to the Family
People who have this problem often blame themselves by calling themselves "lazy" or "stupid" because they don't understand the unconscious root of their problem.

There can be many reasons why a person struggles with internal conflict about successful completions. One common reason is an unconscious fear of being disloyal to the family.

Let's take a look at a vignette, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality, to see how this problem can play out in a person's life:

Ted
Ted came to therapy because he was having problems completing an article for a professional journal  that had a deadline which was looming over his head.

Overcoming Fear of Success Linked Unconsciously to Fear of Being Disloyal to the Family

When Ted first came to therapy, he couldn't understand why he was having such a problem completing the the project.  He was an experienced writer who had written many articles before.  But the difference  with this particular article was that his publisher told Ted that he had a chance to get significant recognition in his field, including lucrative speaking engagements, by publishing this article, and Ted felt more "blocked" than he had ever felt before.

It didn't make sense to him why he was struggling so much.

It was obvious that we weren't going to get anywhere in therapy by just talking about it, and there was no quick fix for Ted's problem.

So, I educated Ted about the mind-body connection and how the body can provide information about what's happening on an unconscious level (see my article:  The Mind-Body Connection: The Body Provides a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

I asked Ted to focus on where he sensed the emotional discomfort in his body when he thought about writing the article, and he was able to say he felt tension in his upper stomach.

As we stayed with the feeling and where he felt it in his body, I asked Ted to just see what images, thoughts or feelings came to mind.

As Ted continued to sense into what he was experiencing, he began having thoughts about his mother, who died several years ago.

At first, Ted didn't think his thoughts about his mother were relevant, but I asked him to stay with it and see what else came up.

As he stayed with it, he identified feelings of anxiety, guilt and sadness, but he didn't know why he was feeling this way.

Over time, in subsequent sessions, we continued to work in this way, and Ted began having memories of his mother struggling to make ends meet by cleaning other people's houses after Ted's father left the household.

As the sole supporter of Ted and his younger brother, his mother would often come home exhausted.  As a child, Ted had a very strong wish that he could do something to make his mother's life easier, but he was only 10 years old, so there was nothing he could do.

There were times his mother's employers, who had significant financial means, were inconsiderate of her and didn't pay her on time.  Sometimes, weeks would go by before they paid her, and she was too afraid of being fired to ask for the money.  This usually meant that she was late with the rent.

During one session, as Ted was focusing on his emotions and physical sensations, he remembered how, as a child, he felt such hatred for these people.  He was surprised because he had not thought about this in many years.

Then, Ted felt overwhelmed with sadness as he realized that he was "blocked" in his work because he now had a chance to get significant recognition, and possibly make a lot of money, and he feared being in the same league as his mother's former employers, the people who mistreated his mother.

Unconscious Fear that Success Would Mean Disloyalty to His Mother

Ted remembered that, as a child, he hated people who had a of money.  But, as an adult, Ted he knew better than to lump all people with financial means together as one group.

He also knew that he would never behave the way that his mother's employers did.  But, on an emotional level, he felt his old childhood feelings, which were that his allegiance to his mother's memory would be broken if he became financially successful.

As we continued to work together over time, I helped Ted to work through his conflict and to begin to distinguish himself on an emotionally level (as opposed to only a cognitive level) from "them."

We worked with this younger self using clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy) to soothe and calm the part of himself that became the repository of these old feelings.

We also worked to help Ted to "update" his emotional reaction to his dilemma to reflect what he now understood as an adult--namely, that being successfully would not be a form of disloyalty to his mother (see my article:  Working Through Emotional Trauma: Separating "Then" From "Now").

We also worked through the grief Ted was holding onto for the loss of both his mother and father.

Over time, as we worked through his conflict, Ted became calmer and his ideas began to flow.    He was no longer blocked.

Ted became more confident.  He no longer felt that becoming successful would make him disloyal to his mother.

As Ted Worked Through His Emotional Conflict, He Became More Confident 

As he became more confident, he felt good about his writing again, and he began sharing his draft with his wife, who was emotionally supportive of Ted throughout the process.

Ted was able to complete the article on time, and he was able to enjoy the success that came with it without feeling guilty.

Getting Help in Therapy
Many clients come to therapy because they can't understand why they have problems with completions, whether it's completing a college degree or completing a particular project.

Often, by the time they come to therapy, their difficulty with completions has had a significant impact on their lives.

There can be many reasons why people struggle with completing projects or tasks.  The struggle often involves unresolved unconscious psychological issues tied to family history.

If you 're struggling with this issue, you don't need to struggle alone.  You owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has expertise helping clients with this problem.

Working through this issue can free you from an emotional burden that's holding you back.

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.

Fear of Being Emotionally Vulnerable in a Relationship

In a prior article, Dating: Is It Time to Have "The Talk"? , I discussed how people who are dating are often afraid, due to their fear of being emotionally vulnerable, of having "the talk" to clarify the nature of their relationship.  In this article, I'll expand on the theme of  fear of emotional vulnerability.

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I've seen many clients, especially clients in their 20s and 30s, who feel that the idea of "romance" and being in a committed relationship is old fashioned.

Fear of Being Emotionally Vulnerable

Many of these clients have told me that they prefer to "hook up" and "hang out" rather than getting serious with anyone.

This perspective might work for some people.  But for many others, this perspective is rooted in a fear of getting hurt.

Many of these same clients, who avoid romantic commitments to keep from getting hurt, discover, after a while, that their experiences feel shallow and meaningless (see my article: Wanting and Dreading Love).

Fear of Being Emotionally Vulnerable

They often discover that the emotional numbing that's required to ensure that you don't get hurt isn't a process where you can be selective about what you feel:  Not only do you numb yourself to potential hurt, you also numb yourself to potential joy.

Let's take a look at the vignette below which, as always, is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Lee
Lee was in her early 30s when she started therapy with me.  She came to therapy because she felt vaguely dissatisfied with her life, but she didn't know why she was feeling this way or what to do about it.

Fear of Being Emotionally Vulnerable

She was oldest of three children, and her parents divorced when she was 10.  She and her siblings spent the school year with their mother in New York City and their summers with their father in Los Angeles.

Each parent criticized the other parent to the children, not realizing what an emotional burden this was to place on young children.

Based on seeing her parents' marriage unravel in such a destructive way, Lee vowed she would never get married.  Instead, she decided she would focus on her career, travel, and other things she wanted in her life.

When she was a senior in high school, Lee started dating a young man where there was a mutual attraction.  Even though she thought he was kind and intelligent as well as handsome, she made a conscious decision not to allow herself to develop intense feelings for him.  She told him she didn't want any "strings attached."  So, despite his wish for something more committed, they kept it casual and things eventually ended between them when Lee went off to college.

Throughout college and into her early 30s, Lee maintained this same "no strings attached" dynamic with men.  Even after she was settled in a career and doing well financially, she kept things casual with the men that she dated.

She thought of herself as being "an independent woman" who enjoyed casual "hook ups" with men.  And in order to ensure that no emotional intimacy developed, she intentionally distanced herself emotionally.

Whenever she dated someone who showed signs that he wanted to take things to the "next step," which involved a commitment, Lee ended it.

In her early 30s, although she prided herself on not experiencing the heart break that many of her friends had experienced, she also felt deeply lonely.  And, although she was happy in her career and she had good friends, she felt an emptiness in her life which she didn't understand.

Lee was comfortable taking risks in her career and in other areas of her life.  But when it came to romance, she was risk averse.

As we explored the vow she made to herself as a child that she would never get married, Lee began to understand how her experience of her parents' divorce affected her ability to be open and emotionally vulnerable with men that she liked.

After a while, she began to understand that her view of herself as an "independent woman" was really a pseudo independence based on her fear of getting hurt.

She realized that her loneliness was based on her avoidance of having meaningful connections with the men that she dated.

As she was able to be more emotionally honest with herself, she also realized that she really cared for the man she was currently "hooking up" with and she didn't want to end things between them the way she did with other men.

But Lee had a dilemma:  On the one hand, although she wanted to continue seeing this man, she was also very afraid to open up to the possibility that they could have something more between them because she didn't want to get hurt.

Whenever he brought up the topic of, possibly, taking things to the next level, Lee made a lot of excuses as to why this wasn't "the right time" in her life.

But, as she and I explored this in her therapy, she realized that she was emotionally paralyzed with fear and that fear, as opposed to being "independent," was dictating her choices.

And, as we continued to explore this in therapy, she knew that if she continued to allow her fear to get the best of her, she would eventually lose someone that she really cared about.

So, we started by working on the unresolved emotional pain about her parents' divorce, and how abandoned she felt as a child by parents who were focused on their animosity towards each other, as opposed to focusing on their children.  This wasn't easy work for Lee, who tried to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions.

But, over time, as Lee was able to work through her unresolved sadness and anger about her parents' divorce, she began to feel a glimmer of hope that she could allow herself to open up more with the man she was dating.

After several months, Lee's worst fears came true:  The man she was seeing ended their relationship.  From his perspective, even though Lee was starting to open up a little, it was "too little, too late" for him, and he wanted to be in a relationship with a woman who didn't have Lee's problems.

The breakup was so painful for Lee that, at first, she vowed to never allow another man to get this close to her again.  It was a real setback for Lee (see my article:  Setbacks Are a Normal Part of Therapy on the Road to Healing).

But, over time, as we worked together to help her through the emotional pain, Lee realized that, although it was hard, the pain she felt was preferable to being numb emotionally.

After several months,  Lee began to feel she was ready to open up again with another man that she met.  Not wanting to make the same mistakes, she was able to dig deep inside of herself to find the courage to open up and allow herself to be more vulnerable with this man.

She was afraid, but having overcome the emotional pain of the prior relationship, she knew she wasn't going to crumble if this new relationship didn't work out.  She knew she had the inner strength to survive.

And, as it turned out, over time, Lee and her new boyfriend developed a passionate, loving relationship based on their willingness to open up to each other and experience love.

Fear of Opening Up and Allowing Yourself to be Emotionally Vulnerable
As human beings, we're hard wired for attachment to others.  But, sometimes, early childhood experiences cause people to become too afraid of intense romantic attachments.

Some people spend their whole lives protecting themselves from getting hurt--only to look back later with loneliness and regret.

I've also met people who are perfectly fine without being in a relationship.  Being alone for them isn't about defending against emotional vulnerability.  It's a choice they've made that they're happy with it.  They have people and experiences that make life meaningful, and they're not lonely.

But for many people, who have allowed their fears to numb them, life has little pain but also little joy.  Everything feels "flat" and unsatisfying to them.  They're also very lonely.

Getting Help in Therapy
If the vignette in this article resonates with you and you want to overcome your fear of being emotionally vulnerable, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health practitioner who has expertise in this area.

Numbing yourself emotionally might help to protect you from getting hurt, but it also keeps you from feeling joy and happiness.  This is a heavy price to pay to remain "safe."

By working through your fears, you can open yourself up to the possibility of leading a more fulfilling life.

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

Making Changes: Are You Creating Obstacles For Yourself in Therapy Without Even Realizing It?

In a prior article,  Rethinking the Concept of the "Help Rejecting Client" , I discussed that, as a psychotherapist, I don't find the concept of the "help rejecting client" to be especially useful in trying to work with clients who might be, unconsciously, creating obstacles in their therapy to making changes.

Making Changes: Are You Creating Obstacles For Yourself in Therapy 

The focus of that article was the term, "help rejecting client," how it's counterproductive to therapy, and that, most of the time, the onus is on the therapist to find creative ways of working rather than blaming the client.

In this article, I'll focus on the same issue, which is common in therapy, to encourage clients, who might be engaging in creating obstacles in therapy, to become more aware of what they might be doing unconsciously that gets in their way of making the positive changes that they want in their lives.

No One Likes to Think of Himself or Herself as "Creating Obstacles" in Therapy
Let's begin by saying that no one likes to think of herself or himself as "creating obstacles" in therapy.

When a client is unconsciously engaging in this dynamic, the therapist needs to broach this issue with the utmost tact and compassion, otherwise it can engender a lot of shame in a client.

Since many clients come to therapy with a long history of being shamed in childhood, the last thing that therapists want to do is engender more shame in therapy.

Since my purpose in writing this article is to help clients, who are often frustrated when they discover that they are unwittingly getting in their own way, I also want to avoid engendering shame.

So, let's try to understand this phenomenon with compassion and understanding.

Why Would Anyone Create Obstacles to the Changes That He or She Wants?
Why would clients, who come to therapy because they want to make changes, create obstacles to the very changes they say they want to make?

After all, coming to therapy involves time, money, and effort.  And, while therapy usually provides a supportive and empathic environment as well an opportunity for self exploration, which can be tremendously gratifying to many people, it's not always "fun" at times.

So, considering that coming to therapy is a major commitment, why would people, who say they want to make changes, get in their own way of making these changes?

Most People Have Some Unconscious Ambivalence About Changes They Want to Make
It's important to understand that, no matter how much people want to change, most people have some degree of unconscious ambivalence about the changes they say they want to make (see my article: Making Changes: Overcoming Ambivalence).

Most of us tend to like to think of ourselves as being integrated beings psychologically.  But, in fact, psychologically speaking, we're really made up of many different aspects within ourselves.

These psychological aspects can be in conflict with each other without a person even realizing it.

Ambivalence About Change

Clients' Ambivalence is Common in Therapy
As a result, I discovered early on in my career as a psychotherapist that it helps to address this unconscious ambivalence during the early stage of therapy to help normalize this phenomenon for clients.

It's helpful for clients to know, in general, about this concept of ambivalence in therapy before they might recognize their own particular ambivalence.

Of course, it's usually easier to see someone else's ambivalence before seeing your own.  So when I'm talking to clients about how it's common to have mixed feelings about making changes, even for deeply desired changes, some clients say, "I've heard about this.  My friend went through that when she started therapy."

But, while this client can see that her friend has this problem, she might not see her own ambivalence at this stage in therapy.

So, beyond just addressing the idea of ambivalence in therapy, as a therapist, I find it's useful to reach for it and, when the time is right for a particular client, to explore his or her ambivalence in a way that gets a client to become curious about his or her psychological process, as opposed to feeling ashamed about it.

Feeling ashamed about it only makes the issue worse and can be retraumatizing, especially for clients who come to therapy with a history of trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
While many people have no awareness of how their ambivalence might be creating problems in their lives, many others do see it and want to change this dynamic for themselves.

If you recognize this dynamic within yourself and you want to change it, you could benefit from working with a therapist who is skilled in helping clients to overcome this problem.

By addressing this issue in the initial consultation with a therapist, you can often sense how the therapist might deal with it and whether or not this therapist is a good match for you.

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

I have helped many clients, who were, initially, creating obstacles for themselves in therapy, to learn to overcome this dynamic 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.