Achieving Your Goals: Learn to Celebrate Small Successes Along the Way to the Final Goal

In an earlier article, Staying Positive and Focused on Your Goals, I discussed strategies for successfully accomplishing your goals.  In this article, I'd like to focus on a specific aspect of success in achieving goals, which is learning to celebrate the steps along the way to achieving your ultimate goal.

Achieving Your Goals: Learn to Celebrate Small Successes Along the Way

Staying Motivated
Often, when people are so focused on achieving goals, they only give themselves credit at the point when they have completed the goal and not for the interim steps that represent small successes along the way.

In order to stay motivated to stick with a big goal, rather than only focusing on the end result, it's important to acknowledge and feel good about all the steps along the way that add up to a big transformational goal.  

When you feel good about the steps that you're taking, you're more likely to stay focused on your goal than when you don't' attribute much importance to each step.

Let's compare two examples, which are fictionalized accounts of many people's experience of working on goals:

Mary's Story:

After her doctor warned her that she was prediabetic, Mary decided that she was going to lose 50 lbs with a combination of a change in diet and increased exercise.  She joined the gym and she also joined Weight Watchers and attended their support groups.  She also started therapy to try to understand what triggered her overeating and to develop better coping skills.

Achieving Your Goals: Mary's Story

After the month, Mary lost 7 lbs., which her friends, therapist and Watch Watcher peer group applauded.  But Mary was unable to accept their praise, and she was only focused on her end goal of losing 50 lbs.  She brushed off the praise by saying, "But I'm still very overweight and I won't be happy until I lose the 50 lbs."

By the second month, Mary lost another 5 lbs., and even though the people who were part of her emotional support system, once again, praised this accomplishment, Mary was beginning to feel discouraged.  

Even though her doctor told her that she was losing weight at a healthy rate and, if she continued with her healthier lifestyle she would eventually get to her goal, Mary still felt down because she wasn't "there yet" at her goal.

By the third month, Mary was still berating herself.   Even though she lost another 5 lbs., rather than using the coping strategies that she learned in therapy, she felt so discouraged and impatient that she had not lost the 50 lbs. that she stopped dieting and exercising; she stopped going to therapy, and she resumed her unhealthy lifestyle until she gained back all of the weight that she lost.

Betty's Story:

Betty's doctor told Betty that she needed to lose 50 lbs in order to avoid developing diabetes, which runs in the family.  Betty knew that it would take a while for her to accomplish her goal of losing 50 lbs and that it wouldn't be easy.  She knew it would be a process.

So, in order to stay motivated, she set reasonable interim goals to the final goal of losing 50 lbs.  Her goal was to lose 5 lbs per month over 10 months.  She joined the gym and Weight Watchers, and she also started therapy to stay motivated and manage the emotional triggers that caused her overeating.

Betty also made a plan that she would reward herself for every 5 lbs that she lost along the way.  So, after she lost the first 5 lbs., she treated herself to a massage, and after she lost the second 5 lbs., she treated herself to a day out with friends to see a play.

Achieving Your Goals: Betty's Story

Betty was able to take in the praise of friends and other supporters and allow it to sink in so she felt good about herself along the way.  This, in turn, kept her motivated while she learned to deal with the emotional triggers of overeating in her therapy.  

Within 10 months, Betty achieved her ultimate goal of losing 50 lbs. and she learned how to keep it off with the new coping skills she learned in therapy as well as the other healthy habits she learned in therapy.

Comparing the Two Scenarios:

It's obvious from comparing the two scenarios that Betty was successful in achieving her overall goal by:

• breaking down her goal into smaller, manageable parts
• seeing her final goal as a process and being patient
• rewarding herself for her smaller successes to stay motivated along the way to her ultimate goal
• being able to feel good about herself and accept praise from her emotional support system
• sticking with her plan, learning new strategies, making changes and not getting discouraged

We can compare this to running a marathon vs a sprint.  If a marathon runner started the race by only focusing on the end result, s/he might get discouraged before the halfway mark.  Being able to complete the race (or achieve the ultimate goal) means having a strategy to go the distance.

Getting Help in Therapy
Even when people know that they need to celebrate their small successes along the way, there are often emotional obstacles that make it difficult for them to do this for themselves, especially if they don't feel good about themselves.

Many people struggle with this issue, and everyone needs help at some point in their lives, so you're not alone.

Getting help from a licensed mental health professional and sticking with therapy can help you to overcome the particular emotional obstacles that are keeping you from accomplishing your goals.

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 achieve their goals and live 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 or email me.

Achieving Your Goals: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Create a Vision of What You Want

We've all heard about how important it is to set goals in order to have the life that you want.  But for many people goal setting remains a mystery.  They're not sure where to start.  So, in this article, I'm focusing on the first stage of goal setting, which is creating a vision of what you want.

Achieving Your Goals: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Create a Vision of What You Want

Goal Setting:  Creating a Vision of What You Want

In order to set goals for yourself, you need to know what you want.  Although this sounds logical, for many people, this is a big stumbling block because they don't know what they want.

In many ways, the initial stage of goal setting, creating a vision, can be the most fun stage.  

By relaxing and using your imagination, you can begin to create a vision for yourself that will help you to realize what you want.

Achieving Your Goals: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Create a Vision of What You Want

During the early 1980s, I read a book by Shakti Gawain called Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Life.

In this book, Ms. Gawain outlines how you can use, among other things, mental imagery to free up your imagination so you can create visualizations as the starting point of your goal setting process.  I would recommend this book as a start if you're having a problem at the initial stage of goal setting.

I recommend, at this stage, that people just allow themselves the freedom to visualize whatever their imagination comes up with without censoring themselves.

Allow yourself to dream and play with ideas.  Later on, you can get more specific.  But at this stage it's important to allow yourself to "play" with the images that come up without judging them.

Goal Setting:  Concretizing the Images and Using Your Vision as a Road Map to Achieve Your Goals

The next stage would be to write down the images or ideas that come to you.

It's important to capture your images and ideas and to concretize them in some way.  Whether this means writing down a list or, if you want to take more time and be creative, drawing or making collages that are symbolic of what you want.

Achieving Your Goals: Creating a Road Map

Symbols can be powerful representations that help to stimulate your imagination even more and also help you to develop other ideas.

Whichever way you choose to concretize what comes up in your imagination, capturing it in a concrete way, on the most basic level, helps you to remember it rather than allowing it to slip away like a puff of smoke.  It also helps to reinforce whatever comes up and helps you to create a road map to follow to achieve your goals.

Goal Setting: Clinical Hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing

For many people, who try to use their imagination to create a vision of what they want, nothing comes. No matter how hard they try, their minds remain blank and all they see when they close their eyes is, well, nothing.

Initially, when I first tried to do visualizations many years ago, I also got nothing.  I had friends who had wonderful, very detailed technicolor visualizations.  I was happy for them, but I also wished that I could do more than draw a blank when I closed my eyes.

Over time, I practiced visualizing and I got much better at it (see my article:  Wellness: Learning to Visualize in Meditation for helpful tips on improving your visualization skills).

For people who really feel stuck, clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy), as conducted by a licensed mental health professional who is a hypnotherapist, can help you to relax and open up to that creative part of yourself that you might not have even realized was part of you.

People have many preconceived ideas about clinical hypnosis, based on seeing stage hypnosis by a lay hypnotist, which is a distortion of what clinical hypnosis really is.

Achieving Your Goals: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Create a Vision of What You Want

Somatic Experiencing is a mind-body oriented therapy that can allow you, among other things, to tap into your creative imagination (see my article:  Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind to understand Somatic Experiencing).

When clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing are used together, they can become powerful tools for transformation.

Working with a licensed therapist who is trained in hypnotherapy and Somatic Experiencing can help to free your imagination so that you can create a vision of your goals so you can realize your goals.

Getting Help in Therapy
Since I began using Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis with my clients in my psychotherapy private practice several years ago, I have found, in many cases, that these mind-body oriented techniques are often more powerful than regular talk therapy for people who feel stuck.

Rather than struggling on your own, you can overcome whatever is blocking you from creating what you want in your life by working with a therapist who is trained in clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing.

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 people to create and achieve their goals so they can live a more fulfilling life.

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

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

Understanding the Difference Between Guilt and Shame

Guilt and shame are two emotions that are often confused, but there are basic differences between them. In earlier articles about shame, including Overcoming Shame, I discussed shame, what it is, what causes shame, and what can be done to overcome shame.  In this article, I will describe the differences between guilt and shame and give examples to clarify those differences.

Shame vs Guilt

Let's take a look at the differences between guilt and shame:

Differences Between Guilt and Shame:

• Shame is a Pervasive Feeling About Oneself vs Guilt Which is Usually About Behavior: Whereas shame is often a pervasive, negative feeling that people have about themselves that can be emotionally crippling in severe cases ("I'm a bad person"), guilt isn't a feeling about oneself--it's a feeling about a particular behavior ("I did something bad").

• Shame Has No Redeeming Qualities Whereas Guilt Can Lead to Taking Responsibility and to Change: There are no redeeming qualities to being ashamed of oneself.  When people feel ashamed, they feel badly about themselves and it often makes them want to isolate or avoid whatever makes them feel ashamed.   Shame about oneself can actually cause someone to avoid looking at whatever s/he feels ashamed about.  But feeling guilty can force someone to look at himself or herself and take responsibility for negative behavior.  Feeling guilty can have redeeming aspects to it if it leads to people making amends for things they feel badly about doing.  Feeling guilty can lead to making an effort to reconcile with others and to making other changes.  Guilt can help people to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.

• Shame Can Be Longstanding Whereas Guilt is Often Transitory: Whereas feeling guilty about a particular behavior is often temporary, feeling ashamed often goes to the core of how a person feels about him or herself.

• Shame Can Contribute to Depression and Anxiety:  Feeling ashamed can contribute to mental health problems, like depression and anxiety, because it's an overall pervasive feeling about oneself.  It usually goes to the core of how people feel about themselves, whereas guilt usually does not affect people in this way.

Examples of the Difference Between Shame and Guilt

Shame:
Joe felt ashamed because he felt so socially inept that he avoided attending gatherings, including the funeral service for his friend's mother.

Feeling Ashamed and Avoiding People and Situations

His shame had a snowballing effect because not only did he avoid the funeral, but he felt so ashamed of himself that he avoided calling his friend or going to places where he knew his friend would be.  After a while, Joe and his friend became estranged, which made Joe feel even more ashamed.

Guilt:
Sharon felt guilty that she didn't go to her friend's mother's funeral service because the timing was too close to her own mother's death and it was too hard for her.

Feeling Guilty and Apologizing

But she called her friend in advance to express her condolences and offered to see her one-on-one when she knew her friend would be alone and feeling lonely after everyone else had gone.  Her friend accepted her apology and they remained close friends.

Shame:
Betty suffered with a lot of shame because she gained 20 lbs over the last year due to overeating.  Her doctor recommended that Betty see a nutritionist to change her eating habits, seek help in therapy to overcome the underlying issues to her overeating, and go to the gym to exercise.  But Betty felt that her weight gain made her "ugly."

Feeling Ashamed, Isolated and Immobilized

Instead of taking steps to lose weight, she isolated herself at home and continued to berate herself for gaining the weight.   This, in turn, made her feel more ashamed and she continued to overeat to deal with her pervasive feelings of shame.  It became a vicious cycle.

Guilt:
Cindy felt guilty about overeating for the last year and gaining 20 lbs.  Her doctor advised her that Cindy needed to take steps to lose the weight for health reasons.  Cindy knew that she was successful at losing weight in the past and that she could do it again.

Feeling Guilty But Taking Steps to Get Healthy

Rather than dwelling on the fact that she had been overeating, she made a commitment to her doctor and to herself to make important lifestyle changes to get healthy.  Then, she made an appointment with a nutritionist to develop better eating habits.  She contacted a therapist to deal with the underlying issues involved with her overeating.  She also began going to the gym three times a week.  Whenever she was tempted to overeat, she remembered how guilty she felt in the past, and she used that feeling to motivate herself to change.  As she lost weight and got healthier, she felt more motivated to continue getting healthier.

Shame and Guilt Can Be Difficult to Handle on Your Own
While it might be easier to overcome feelings of guilt, as compared to feelings of shame, they can both be difficult to overcome on your own.

Getting Help in Therapy
People who tend to suffer with shame often have a hard time asking for help because they feel they don't deserve it (see my article:  Overcoming the Shame that Keeps You From Going to Therapy).

Getting Help in Therapy

But everybody needs help at some point, especially when it comes to overcoming guilt or shame.

When you work with a licensed psychotherapist who has experience helping clients to overcome guilt or shame, you're usually able to work out these feelings in a way you can't on your own.

Letting go of difficult feelings that are holding you back in your life can free you to lead a happier and more fulfilling life.

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 feelings of guilt and shame.

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

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

The Connection Between Obsessive Love as an Adult and Unmet Childhood Emotional Needs

Most relationships start out with heady, romantic feelings and frequent thoughts about the beloved, as well as eager anticipation about seeing each other.  This is a common experience during the initial stage of a relationship when people fall in love.  

Eventually, if all goes well, these heady feelings develop into a more enduring, mature kind of love.  This is a very different experience from the topic of this blog, The Connection Between Obsessive Love as an Adult and Unmet Childhood Emotional Needs, where a person, who experiences painful romantic obsessions, is feeling more than the usual heady feelings.  This person tends to form dependent romantic relationships.

The Connection Between Obsessive Love and Unmet Childhood Emotional Needs

Obsessive Love is also Known Informally as "Love Addiction"
Although there's no formal diagnosis for this condition, obsessive love, also known informally as "love addiction," can be excruciatingly painful.

It's painful enough when the love is reciprocated, but it's even more emotionally painful where there is unrequited love (see my article: Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships: Unrequited Love).

Even when the love is reciprocated, the person who experiences obsessive love puts a heavy burden on  his or her romantic partner.  He or she often has unconscious expectations that his or her partner will fulfill all their longstanding unmet emotional needs.

Obsessive Love Can Affect Both Men and Women

People, who are usually high functioning in most areas of their lives, can regress emotionally to the emotional equivalent of a young child who is starved for love and attention because these core needs, which were unmet in childhood, get triggered in adult romantic relationships.

In many cases, it's as if an emotional chasm, which was sealed off, suddenly opens up and the person feels a bottomless pit of emptiness and an urgent need for love and attention.

The vignette below, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates this phenomenon:

Sally
Sally, who was in her late 20s, came to see me in my psychotherapy private practice shortly after she began seeing John.

In her career, she was well respected as a manager who was hard working, highly competent and confident.  She had many close friends, an active social life, and found meaning in her volunteer work.

The Connection Between Obsessive Love as an Adult and Unmet Early Childhood Needs

Generally, she felt relatively happy, self confident and positive about life.  But all of that changed within a few months of developing romantic feelings for John, the first man that she had really fallen in love with since college.

She couldn't understand how she changed, within a short period of time, from being a cheerful, confident woman into what she described as "a needy, obsessive wretch" who needed constant reassurance from John that he loved her.  And no amount of his reassurance would alleviate her obsessiveness about his feelings towards her.

Aside from her obsessive thoughts about John, the worst part for her was that she was afraid that John, who was very loving and attentive, would get fed up with her need for constant reassurance and he would leave her.

This thought only made her feel worse and she was caught in a vicious cycle of obsession, angst, and regret for asking for his constant reassurance.

She described how she feared that she would never be able to break this cycle and, if she couldn't, she was doomed to be alone because no one would be willing to endure her obsessiveness.

When she described her childhood, it became evident that she was emotionally neglected as a child by parents who weren't around for most of her early childhood.

It was also obvious that, as a resilient and resourceful child, she fended for herself a lot and she did well academically and, later on as an adult, in her career.

But her unmet emotional needs were getting triggered, even though John was a loving and attentive romantic partner.

Sally maintained enough objectivity to see that John wasn't the issue--it was her, and she wanted desperately to stop feeling these obsessive emotions.  She felt like she was losing her mind.

I started by helping Sally develop coping strategies to keep her from acting on her obsessiveness.  I helped Sally to learn basic breathing techniques to help her to calm down when her thoughts and emotions felt like they were going to overtake her.  She practiced these techniques every day and felt some relief.

In addition to coming regularly to weekly therapy sessions, I also encouraged Sally to keep a journal to write down her thoughts, instead of pouring out her fears to John over and over again.  And, as Sally wrote in her journal, she experienced some relief in being able to vent and discharge her emotions in her journal, as well as in therapy, instead of having them all come spilling out with John.

Sally continued to feel very judgmental and self critical about her emotional needs.  These feelings developed as a young child when her mother would tell her to stop being "a cry baby" whenever Sally was left alone, lonely and frightened.

Even though, as an adult, Sally knew, on a rational level, that no child should be left overnight by herself, she found it very difficult to stop judging herself for her emotional needs.

After we worked on coping skills, we began the work on dealing with Sally's unresolved emotional trauma from childhood.

Over time, we used a combination of EMDR, clinical hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy), and Somatic Experiencing, which all take into account the mind-body connection and are often more effective than just talk therapy by itself.

The therapeutic work was not easy or quick, but Sally stuck with it.

At the end of each session, we either did the Safe Place Meditation or we used the time for Sally to debrief about what came up, so that she felt calm enough to leave the session without feeling overwhelmed by the work that we did.

Working Through Unresolved Childhood Trauma in Therapy

By the time Sally terminated therapy, she developed a greater sense of self compassion and understanding for how her early unmet needs were at the core of her obsessiveness in her relationship with John.  And, just as important, she no longer felt obsessed and she was able to enjoy the relationship feeling like an adult.

Getting Help in Therapy
Many people, who were emotionally neglected or abused as children, don't understand why they become so obsessed in romantic relationship.  Since they don't have psychological training, it's understandable that they don't make the connection between their unmet childhood needs and their current obsessiveness in their relationship.

If the composite vignette above about Sally resonates with you, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has a mind-body orientation to therapy and who has expertise in working with clients on this issue.

Once you've been able to work through your childhood trauma, you have an opportunity to have more fulfilling relationships as an adult.

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

I have worked with many clients who have struggled with obsessive love and who were able to work through their emotional issues to live 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 or email me.

The Sexual Reawakening of an Older Woman With a Younger Man: Movie: Bright Days Ahead

In a prior article, Overcoming Lack of Intimacy: Movie: Hope Springs, I discussed the main characters' (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) long term sexless marriage and the wife's attempts to recharge their sexual life in the context of this issue being a common problem in many long term marriages.

Misconceptions and Stereotypes About Older Women

Looking at Misconceptions and Stereotypes About Older Women
I recently went to see the movie, Bright Days Ahead (Les Beaux Jours), a French movie starring Frances Ardant (Truffant's The Woman Next Door), Patrick Chesnais (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Laurent Lafitte, and directed by Marion Vernoux.

Bright Days Ahead is about a 60 year old woman, Caroline (Ardant), as she is coming to terms with the unexpected death of a close friend who was close to her age, and a long-term marriage that is loving and comfortable but without passion.

After the shock of her friend's sudden death, Caroline decides to retire from her dental practice to reassess her life.  Her well-meaning daughter gives her a gift in the form of a membership to a senior center, which is called Bright Days Ahead, to help Caroline fill her time.

Initially, Caroline is put off by the condescending instructors and the activities for seniors at Bright Days Ahead which have no meaning for her.  She feels above it and she is ready to dismiss the idea of attending the center.  But when she meets the computer instructor,  Julien  (Lafitte), who is a handsome, sexy man in his late 30s, she has second thoughts.

After Julien comes on to her, Caroline begins a May-December sexual affair with him as part of her  sexual and emotional reawakening.

I won't give away the rest of the plot.

Although Bright Days Ahead and Ardant's character are not without their flaws, it's rare to find a movie about an attractive, poised, confident woman in her early 60s, who rediscovers her sexual passion and who has no illusions about this younger man or about the sexual affair.

I think there will be some cultural issues for American audiences, who will probably be more judgmental about the infidelity and how it affects Caroline's husband and their relationship.  I admit that I felt myself bristle at how Caroline carried on this affair, even going to places where she risked running into friends of hers and her husband's, and potentially hurting her husband and her marriage.

But, if you're able to put these issues aside for a moment (no easy task, I know), I think the movie has a lot to say to counter the stereotypes of older woman being unattractive, sexless beings who are destined to be "put out to pasture" when they reach their 60s (see my article: Making Peace with the Aging Process).

Of course, you don't have to have a sexual affair to reawaken the passion in your life, whether it's sexual passion or a passion for life in general.

When I was a child, I thought 60 was very old.  Part of this was based on seeing the way my grandmother aged.  At the time, I didn't know how sick she was and how this affected the aging process for her.  But, even so, in my grandmother's day, people thought of themselves as being old by the time they were in their 60s.  And it wasn't unusual for men, who retired at 65, to only live a few years after their retirement.

These days, people who are in relatively good health, are living past their 80s and 90s.  Many people retire now and start new careers.  Often, they decide to take a new career path in a field that they find more meaningful than their original careers.  Or, they take up a new hobby that they didn't have time for before.

As Americans, we're obsessed with youth and staying young.  I think Bright Days Ahead challenges many ideas about aging, relationships, what's "appropriate" when it comes to younger and older lovers and for this alone, I think it's worth seeing this movie.

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.

Also see: Indiewire interview with Fanny Ardant about Bright Days Ahead

Are You Allowing Your Fears to Dictate Your Choices in Life?

Most people come to therapy because they're unhappy with their lives.  In many cases, their unhappiness stems from allowing their fears to dictate their choices in their lives.  Over time, as their lives become narrower and less fulfilling, they feel increasingly unhappy.  It's as if they're in hiding.

Are You Allowing Your Fears to Dictate Your Choices in Life?

Many people who have this problem have no awareness that their fears have dominated their decision- making process.  Their fears have become so entrenched that they no longer question them.  They don't even realize that they're making choices based on fear and so they've come to accept the "logic" of their decisions.

Gradually, these fears can generalize to such an extent that they can affect major areas in a person's life.

Let's take a look at a vignette, which is a composite of many different people, to understand this phenomenon:

Amy
Amy began therapy because she felt unfulfilled in her life.  She watched the friends that she went to college with develop satisfying relationships, and she couldn't understand why she wasn't in a relationship.

While she was happy for her friends, she couldn't help questioning herself and wondering, "Is there something wrong with me?"

As we worked together in therapy, Amy came to realize that her main problem was that although she wanted to be in a relationship, she also was afraid to allow men to get close to her (see my article:  An Emotional Dilemma: Wanting and Dreading Love).

This fear had become a major obstacles for her.

Amy also realized that she had been allowing her fears to dictate the choices that she made in her life and that this, in turn, kept her out of social situations where she could meet men.

Allowing Your Fears to Dictate Your Choices:  Amy Was Isolated

In order to deal with this fear, we had to deal with longstanding issues related to her family of origin where her emotional needs were unmet as a child.  Without realizing it, due to her fear, she broke off relationships before emotional intimacy developed.

As we continued to explore the origin of her fear of intimacy, we discovered that Amy had fears of being abandoned in the same way that she was abandoned as a child when her parents moved to Europe for her father's job and left her for several months with an aunt who was cold and emotionally withholding.

Over time, we used EMDR, clinical hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing to work through these memories of her unmet childhood needs.

Amy Worked Through Her Fears in Therapy So She Was No Longer Afraid

The work wasn't easy or fast, but after Amy had worked through these emotional issues, she was no longer afraid and she began to feel ready to open up to the possibility of meeting someone new for a serious relationship.

Getting Help in Therapy
Your fears can make your life small and narrow.  Over time, your fears can keep you stuck and feeling frustrated.

Rather than allowing your fears to keep you from having the life that you want, you owe it to yourself to get help in therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're unable to overcome your fears on your own, you're not alone.  This is a phenomenon that many people experience.  With help from a licensed mental health professional, you can develop insight into how your fears are holding you back, work through the issues related to these fears, and take steps to have the life you want.

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.

What Can Employers Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout?

In my prior articles, including Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout, What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout? and What to Do If You're Experiencing Workplace Burnout, I focused on what employees can do to avoid burnout.  In this article, my focus is on what employers can do to help prevent burnout at work.

What Can Employers Can Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout?

What Employers Can Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout:

• Set the Tone for the Workplace Environment:  Managers who are able to stay calm during stressful times at work become models for employees on how to handle stress and prevent burnout.  Employees will feel more confident in their managers during stressful times and they are more likely to follow the manager's lead if s/he demonstrates good stress management skills.  So, managers need to learn good stress management skills and be aware of how they are coming across.  This is in everyone's best interest in terms of developing a healthy work environment, meeting company goals, retaining good employees, and satisfying shareholders and other stakeholders.

• Improve Communication With Your Employees:  It is especially important during stressful times, when there might be uncertainty at workplace, to share information in a clear and effective manner.  One of the worst things that can happen during uncertain times is for the rumor mill to escalate with false information due to a lack of information and clear communication.  Be clear about employees' jobs and their roles, and avoid being mean spirited and petty.  It's best to maintain an open-door policy, which is more than just words, in a collegial atmosphere so that employees feel comfortable coming to you and will know that their manager will listen with an open mind.  Be generous with praise and provide constructive criticism in a balanced way within the context of overall work performance, not just related to negative isolated incidents.  Harassment should never be tolerated.

Improve Communication With Your Employees

• Provide Opportunities For Employees to Share in the Decision-making Process:  Wherever possible, especially in instances where decisions will affect employees' jobs, allow employees to participate in the decision-making process.  A collaborative process might take longer than if a manager just dictates what s/he wants but, in the long run, it will make it more likely that employees will buy into changes and also increase the likelihood of a smoother transition during stressful times of change.  It will also help to demonstrate that employees are valued.

• Make Sure that the Workload is Realistic:  Due to years of downsizing, many employees are doing the work of two or more people.  This often leads to burnout.  Managers need to ensure that the workload is realistic and that each employee is given tasks that are in keeping with his or her skills, abilities and experience.  

• Provide Opportunities for Career Development:  Good employees are more likely to stay if there are opportunities to learn and grow as well as being compensated fairly for their work.  Having to replace employees, who feel like they're stagnating, usually costs more than finding opportunities for career development.

Provide Opportunities for Career Development 

• Encourage Employees to Balance Their Work and Personal Lives:  To avoid burnout, it's important for employees to take vacation time to relax and recharge and to spend time with their families.  When managers model this behavior for employees, they will be more likely to strive for this balance (see my article: Balancing Your Career and Personal Life).

• Work Through Your Own Personal Problems That Are Affecting You at Work:  Managers who aren't dealing with their own personal issues and who allow these issues to negatively impact their ability to manage at work should get help.  Without even realizing it, managers, whose personal problems are spilling over into the workplace, can displace their unhappiness and anger on the employees that they manage.  Not only does this create a negative work environment and increase the likelihood of burnout for employees, it also reflects poorly on these managers.  In two prior articles,  Careers: Are You a Bully at Work? and Dealing With a Difficult Boss, I discuss workplace bullies, who often displace their own feelings about problems  in their personal life on their employees.  This is just one of many ways that managers who aren't working on their personal problems can contribute to workplace burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy
Being a manager can be very challenging, especially if your manager is difficult to deal with or you feel caught between wanting to treat your employees fairly and a disregard for employees from top management.

Often managers, who might be open to their employees, have nowhere to go with their own stressors and concerns at the workplace.

Getting Help in Therapy

Also, as mentioned earlier, if you're aware that problems in your personal life are having a negative impact on your employees and your overall work performance, you owe it to yourself, your loved ones and your employees to get help to work through those issues with a licensed mental health practitioner who has expertise in this area.

By getting help in therapy, not only will it help you to be a better manager, it will also help you personally to 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.

Prior to becoming a licensed therapist, I was a human resources manager, so one of my specialties is helping clients with workplace issues.

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.