Developing Realistic Expectations About Your Family of Origin

In my prior articles, I discuss "emotional neglect" and how unmet childhood needs often cause problems for adults.  In this article, I'll be focusing on how adults, who had unmet childhood emotional needs, often have unrealistic expectations about their family of origin, and how therapy can help them to develop more realistic expectations and heal emotionally.

See my articles: 

What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?

What is the Connection Between Childhood Emotional Neglect and Problems in Adult Relationships, 

Developing Realistic Expectations About Your Family of Origin

The Effect of Unmet Child Emotional Needs
As I mentioned in my earlier articles, without help in therapy, unmet emotional needs from childhood usually carry over into adulthood.

If they haven't worked this issue out in therapy, most people are unaware of the effect of these unmet needs.   They're also usually unaware of how they might still hold out hope that their parents or siblings might change and, finally, give them the love and nurturing they didn't give them when they were children.

From a psychotherapist's point of view, this makes psychological sense:  Just because someone is an adult doesn't mean that s/he doesn't still carry that strong wish to finally get what was their birth right as a child.

As most people would agree, every child deserves to be loved and nurtured.

Of course, there's no such thing as a "perfect family" and every parent makes mistakes.  Fortunately, parents don't have to be "perfect."

Due to most children's inherent resilience, parents just need to be "good enough" to provide their children with the a relatively stable, loving home.

But, as we know, for a variety of reasons, this doesn't always happen in every family, especially in families that are chaotic or dysfunctional.  Among the many reasons for this is that, often, the parents of these children weren't nurtured themselves, so they don't know how to nurture their own children.

Whatever the underlying cause might be, unless there are mitigating factors, children who have significant unmet emotional needs usually grow with these same needs.

Developing Realistic Expectations About Your Family of Origin

This doesn't mean that someone who grew up under these circumstances is doomed for the rest of his or her life to be emotionally unfulfilled.  On the contrary, people often find nurturing friendships and romantic relationships if they're discerning and choose healthy relationships.  These relationships help to mitigate what they didn't get when they were children.

Also, there are times when parents and siblings, who were once unloving, can and do change so that familial relationships can be repaired.

But this isn't always the case:  Many people who lived in an unloving family environment continue to perpetuate this in their relationships by choosing unhealthy friendships and relationships, and parents and siblings often don't change, especially if they haven't worked out their personal issues in therapy.

    See my articles:  

Falling In Love With "Mr. Wrong" Over and Over Again

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

Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships

Choosing Healthier Romantic Relationships).

What Happens When Family Members Don't Change to Become Who You Want Them to Be?
When dysfunctional family relationships don't change, the person who grew up feeling unloved can still yearn to gain the love s/he never got from the family.  In many cases, people in these circumstances still hope, against all odds, that they can change a parent or sibling(s).

Developing Realistic Expectations About Your Family of Origin

Does this mean that they should stop trying to repair their family relationships?  No, not necessarily.  After all, people do repair family relationships later in life all the time.

Developing Realistic Expectations About Your Family of Origin

The problem arises when someone doesn't accept the reality of the current situation and continues to have unrealistic expectations of his or her family, even after repeated attempts to change the family dynamic.

Unrealistic Expectations Are Often Unconscious
The person in this situation often doesn't even realize that s/he has unrealistic expectations because this yearning can be unconscious.

So, how do these unconscious, unrealistic expectations come to light?

In many cases, these expectations come to light when someone airs his or her grievances about family members.

S/he might say something like, "Can you believe that my dad let me down again?" or "After all that I've done for my sister, she still won't do even this small favor for me?" or "Why is my mom still nasty to me on the phone?"

A close empathic friend might commiserate with this person about the unfairness of the situation.  Anyone would agree that it's disappointing to be hurt or let down by a family member, especially if there's a lifelong history of this.

But an attuned psychotherapist will hear something more.

An Empathically Attuned Psychotherapist Hears the Underlying Unconscious Wish
A psychotherapist also will hear something more, which is the underlying issue that the client, who has lived all of his or her life being disappointed by family members, seems to still expect different behavior from family members who have been consistently disappointing (see my article:  The Psychotherapist's Empathic Attunement to Unconscious Communication in the Therapy Session).

Many therapists, who do ego states therapy, will also realize that there is an aspect of this client's personality, usually the child self with unmet emotional needs, who is still hurt and continues to have unrealistic expectations.

Ego States Therapy and the Inner Child (or Child Aspect of the Adult)
This type of therapy is called ego states therapy because it recognizes that we all have many different aspects of self, and certain situations elicit different aspects.

So, even though someone is an adult, s/he can still experience a situation, in part, as his or her child self (see my article:  Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue: Overcoming an Impasse in Trauma Therapy for an explanation of ego states therapy).

Ego States Therapy and the Inner Child

As I've mentioned in other articles, ego states therapy (as called "parts work") has nothing to do with multiply personalities or dissociative identity disorder.

These different aspects of self are a part of everyone, but most people don't recognize this because these aspects often remain just under the surface.

Therapists who are trained in ego state therapy are attuned to the various states that come to the surface in therapy sessions.

So that if I hear a client, who came from a chaotic and unloving environment as a child tell me, as an adult, that "it's unfair" that a parent or sibling is continuing to behave in the same dysfunctional way he or she always has, I listen to see if there is a child state under the surface that needs psychological help.

Listening to a client in this way helps therapists to be more attuned and empathic to what's going on with the client.  Equally important, it alerts the ego state therapist that the client needs psychoeducation about ego states and the child state needs to be treated.

Due to the popularity and accessibility of John Bradshaw's books (Healing the Shame That Binds You and Healing the Child Within), many people know about their "inner child."  His books have provided much-needed psychoeducation for people who grew up in unloving dysfunctional homes.

So, whether we call this aspect of self the "inner child" or the child aspect of self, we're talking about the same phenomenon.

Over the years, I've had many clients who have told me that these books have helped them to understand their shame, emotional longing and family dynamics.  Knowing that this is a phenomenon that is experienced by many people helps to normalize how they feel and helps to decrease their shame.

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy and the Unconscious Mind
As I've mentioned in other articles, often regular talk therapy isn't enough to heal certain emotional problems.  Clients might gain an intellectual understanding about the issue, but talk therapy might not be enough to actually change the problem on an emotional level (see my article:  When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough).

In my article, Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body is a Window Into the Unconscious Mind, I explain how certain experiential mind-body oriented types of therapy, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis help to resolve psychological problems when talk therapy might not be adequate.

Ego states therapy, which explores and heals the various states, including the child state, can be used in combination with any of the experiential types of therapy.

Mind-Body Psychotherapy:  The Body is a Window Into the Unconscious Mind

Although there are no quick fixes, experiential mind-body oriented therapy can often help with psychological healing much faster than regular talk therapy.

As I usually like to point out, I am psychoanalytically trained and I have seen the value of both psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).  But I also know that every therapy has certain limitations.

The limitation with CBT talk therapy is that CBT often stays on the surface without a transformative  effect for the client.  And psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy can be transformative, but it can also take a long time (see my article:  Experiential Therapy Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

There are many ways that experiential mind-body oriented psychotherapy, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis and ego states therapy can help when an adult has a child aspect that, understandably, wants a parent or sibling to be different (see my articles:  What is EMDR?, How Does EMDR Work - Part 1, How Does EMDR Work - Part 2,  Overcoming Emotional Trauma With Somatic Experiencing,  Somatic Experiencing: Overcoming the Freeze Response and Clinical Hypnosis and Hypnoprojectives to Overcome Emotional Problems).

Getting Help in Therapy
It can be very hurtful and frustrating to hold to hope against all odds that a family member will change to be the attuned, loving person that you want him or her to be.

Letting go of these types of unrealistic expectations can be very difficult without doing work in therapy to heal the child self in you that still yearns to be loved and nurtured.

Getting Help in Therapy

In my experience as a psychotherapist, a mind-body oriented therapy is usually the best type of therapy to help with this healing process.

Rather than continuing to suffer with unrealistic expectations from family members who show no signs of changing, the best course of action is to focus on yourself and heal the emotional wounds that are keeping you stuck.

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

Reconciling Your Relationship With a Sibling Now That You're Both Adults

In a prior article, Overcoming Unresolved Guilt Towards a Sibling, I discussed how guilt that interferes with a sibling relationship can be resolved.  In this article, I'm focusing on a related topic, reconciling a longstanding conflictual relationship between adult siblings that began in childhood.

Reconciling Your Relationship With a Sibling Now That You're Both Adults

Sibling dynamics are usually developed early in childhood with the possibility of many different influences, including overall family dynamics, age, gender, emotional trauma and other factors.

Many siblings, who grew up with conflictual sibling relationships often feel that they want to overcome the pattern of conflict and reconcile these sibling relationships when they become adults, but this can be challenging, especially if these patterns are longstanding.

The following composite scenario, with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality, is an example of these issues between siblings and how they were able to overcome them:

Bob and Joe
Bob and his younger brother, Joe, spent most of their time as young children with their mother, who was diagnosed by her psychiatrist with major depression and borderline personality disorder.

Their mother spent much of her time in bed, too depressed to rouse to get up to cook or take care of her sons.  Their father, who was a salesman, spent most of his time away on business.  As a result, Bob took on the responsibility of taking care of himself and his younger brother.

Bob and Joe as Children

On those occasions when the mother felt well enough to get out of bed, she favored her younger son, Joe, lavishing him with praise for his looks, his personality, his school work and just about everything about him.

In contrast, she criticized almost everything about Bob, and she told him that no one would ever love him when he grew up.

Not only did she criticize and denigrate Bob, but she instigated Joe against Bob.  At a young age, Joe learned that if he wanted to keep his mother's love, he had to side with her against his brother and so, being too young to understand his mother's emotional problems, he sided with her against Bob.

As a result, this set the dynamic between these two brothers from an early age.  It was deeply hurtful to Bob, who was also too young to understand that his mother's borderline traits were the underlying cause of the problem (see my article:  The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder).

Bob tried to please is mother by trying to help her, making things for her in art class, and trying to be as good as he could be.  He did very well in school.  He won academic and sports awards, always with the hope that he could gain his mother's love.

But his mother didn't changed how she treated her two sons--Joe was the "good one" and Bob was "the bad one," and Joe remained close to his mother by disparaging Bob.

Bob grew up feeling that he was flawed and unlovable in some basic way that he couldn't understand.  Even though he had friends, he was lonely.

On the rare occasions when the father was at home, he distanced himself from Bob, Joe and their mother.  She was disparaging of him too.  Eventually, he left the family to be with a new girlfriend who lived out of state, and he had little contact with Bob and Joe.

Bob went away to college, and he moved to New York City for his first job.  Joe went to a community college near home and continued to live with their mother.  He became a sort of emotional surrogate husband to their mother even in his late teens.

As time went on, Bob saw less and less of his mother and Joe because these visits were very hard emotionally.  He was successful in his career, but he was deeply affected by his mother telling him for many years that he was unlovable and would end up alone.  And, each time that he saw his mother and brother for an occasional family visit, he felt the sting of his mother's disdain which, for him, confirmed that he was unlovable.

Reconciling Your Relationship With a Siblings Now That You're Both Adults

Joe never moved away.  He remained with his mother, taking a local job so he could continue to be live with her rather than moving away for better job opportunities.  None of Joe's attempts to have a  romantic relationship worked out because his mother would come between him and his girlfriend and Joe felt compelled to side with his mother.  Since none of the women wanted to put up with this, these relationships ended quickly.

Bob's sense that he was a deeply flawed individual affected his ability to get into a relationship with a woman.  He was afraid that after a woman got to know him, she would discover how unworthy he was and she would leave him (see my article:  Overcoming the Fear That People Won't Like You If They Discover the "Real You").

But when he was in his mid-20s, he met a woman, Sandy, that he really liked.  Sandy took the initiative to ask Bob out for a date.  As they continued to see each other, even though he liked her, Bob became increasingly afraid of allowing himself to be emotionally vulnerable with her (see my article:  Relationships: Fear of Being Emotionally Vulnerable).

Since Bob felt Sandy was very special and she seemed to like him a lot too, he decided to come to therapy to deal with his fear and confusion.  As we explored his family history, the origins of Bob's fear and feelings of being unlovable became clear.

Although Bob was able to understand intellectually why he felt unlovable, on an emotional level, it didn't change how he felt about himself, so we began to use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to help him overcome his traumatic family history and his feelings of being unlovable (see my articles:  What is EMDR? and EMDR: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough).

Gradually, over time, as Bob processed the emotional trauma of having a unloving, critical mother who played his brother against him, he began to feel better about himself for the first time in his life.  He was able to open up to Sandy in a way that he never believed possible.

He also began to feel that he wanted to try to reconcile his relationship with Joe, if Joe was willing.  Even though he wanted this reconciliation, Bob knew that he couldn't force the issue and that he might have to accept Joe's refusal, especially since Joe remained very close to their mother.

Bob and Joe hadn't been in touch with each other for more than a year when Bob called Joe.  Bob could hear his mother in the background telling Joe to get off the phone after she found out that Bob was calling.  After that, Joe's voice sounded shaky and he ended the conversation abruptly.

We had prepared for this possibility in therapy and although Bob was deeply disappointed, he took Joe's rebuff in stride.  A few months later, feeling that he was doing well and his relationship with Sandy was going smoothly, he left therapy knowing that he could return at any time.

About a year later, Bob contacted me because his mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer and she was already in hospice.  Bob was preparing himself emotionally to see her, possibly for the last time and to see Joe.  So, Bob returned to therapy (see my article:  Returning to Therapy).

We met for a couple of therapy sessions that week before he went home to see his mother and Joe.  His mother, who was heavily sedated, spent time with Bob alone while Joe waited outside.  To Bob's amazement, with tears in her eyes, his mother apologized to him for how cruel she had been over the years.  She asked Bob for his forgiveness and, to Bob's relief, they were able to reconcile just a couple of days before she died.

Although he was relieved to have made amends with his mother, Bob also felt sad for all the time that he and his mother allowed to pass before they reconciled.

After the death of their mother, Joe was so bereft that he asked Bob if he could come stay with him.  Bob realized that, without their mother, Joe felt desperately sad and confused. Joe also expressed shame for the way he treated Bob and said he would understand if Bob refused to have anything to do with him.

Bob hoped this could be the beginning of a reconciliation between them and he took Joe in without hesitation.  It was awkward at first for both of them.  So many years of being at odds with each other couldn't be erased immediately.

After a few weeks, Joe agreed to come to a few sessions of therapy with Bob to try to reconcile their relationship.  He was able to see, for the first time, how their mother influenced the dynamic between them and he felt deeply sorry.  They each expressed sadness, anger, and resentment.  They also felt hopeful, for the first time, that they could have a better relationship now.


When Joe went home, he also began his own individual therapy to deal with the effect of his enmeshed relationship with his mother now that she was gone.  He struggled but, over time, he began to put his life together and he maintained contact with Bob in the context of their new relationship.

Reconciling Sibling Relationships as Adults
The composite scenario above isn't unusual.  Children are often influenced by their need to remain close to a parent who might engage in splitting between siblings.

This is usually an unconscious process for the sibling who sides with a parent against another sibling.  The child's need to have his or her emotional needs met by the parent can overshadow everything else.  And this doesn't automatically change when a person becomes an adult, especially when the sibling remains overly attached to the parent, as in the case with Joe.

Even though the siblings in this scenario weren't able to reconcile until after the mother died, many siblings do work out their relationships as adults before the parent who is engaging in splitting dies.

Reconciling Your Relationship With a Sibling Now That You're Both Adults

This type of reconciliation requires that each sibling has matured enough to be his or her own person; s/he sees the splitting dynamic for the destructive pattern that it is; and s/he is willing to risk the anger of the parent in order to have a better relationship with the sibling as well as to be his or her own person.

Getting Help in Therapy
The scenario that I presented above is one example, among many, of how siblings can grow up to be estranged from each other and how they can reconcile.  There are many variations on this theme.

As adults, many siblings have been helped by seeking the assistance of a licensed mental health professional to help them navigate the emotional difficulties involved with a reconciliation where there has been longstanding animosity or estrangement.

If you and a sibling want to explore the possibility of an emotional reconciliation, you could be helped by a psychotherapist who has experience with this issue.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapy, 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.

Allowing Room for Grief

Experiencing grief, especially when it involves the loss of someone close to you, can be very painful.

For many people, the emotional pain of grief can be so painful that they try to push away or push down their feelings to avoid feeling the sadness and loss.

Allowing Room for Grief:  Some People Try to Push Away Their Feelings

While it's understandable that people who are going through grief might be tempted to deny or push away their feelings, it's important to make room for grief so, eventually, these painful feelings can be worked through.

Pushing Away Grief

People often try to avoid or distract themselves from feeling grief by:

• denying to themselves and others that they feel sad
• zoning out in front of the TV
• binge watching videos
• playing video games for hours
• surfing the Internet for long periods of time
• drinking excessively
• abusing drugs
• engaging in compulsive gambling (see my article:  Overcoming Grief Gambling)
• engaging in compulsive sexual activities
• overeating
• overworking
• engaging in sexual affairs

and so on.

What Are the Possible Negative Consequences of Not Making Room for Grief?

When you try to avoid feeling grief, not only are you shutting yourself off to painful emotions--you're also shutting down to positive feelings.

Allowing Room for Grief

Whether you're numbing yourself by denying your feelings or distracting yourself in any one of a myriad ways, you're also numbing yourself to all of your other feelings.  

After a while, emotional numbing can make you feel out of touch with yourself as well as your loved ones.  You can start to feel that you're just "going through the motions" in life rather than living your life in a meaningful way.

Making Room for Grief

"The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen:  room for grief, for relief, for  misery, for joy."
 Pema Chodron

No one wants to feel sad and upset all of the time, but it's important to make time, when you're ready, to feel your feelings, whether you do this on your own, with a trusted friend or in therapy.

Allowing Room for Grief:  Take Time and Space to Connect With Your Feelings

Here are some suggestions for how you can do this during quiet times when you have privacy (you can consider as to whether they would work for you or not):

• looking at pictures of your loved one
• taking time and space to connect with your feelings
• remembering good times together
• writing down your feelings in a journal
• engaging in creative arts related to your loved one (drawing, making collages, etc)
• revisiting places that were important to the two of you
• listening to music that brings back happy memories
• meditating on your feelings about your loved one
• attending or creating a spiritual ritual that is meaningful to you
• hearing positive stories about your loved one from family members or friends

and so on.

Grieving is an Individual Experience

No two people grieve in the same way.  It's a very individual experience.

In our society, we tend to rush people to "move on" before they're ready.  Not only is this unhelpful, it can also make the person who is grieving feel ashamed, as if he or she is abnormal in some way.

Although people close to you might have good intentions, don't let anyone tell you that you should be "over it" already.

Allowing Room for Grief

There's a difference between avoiding grief and taking the time that you need to deal with your grief.  So, even though I've provided some suggestions above about what many people find helpful, if you're not ready to look at pictures, listen to music that was meaningful to the two of you or engage in any of the activities mentioned above, trust your intuition about this.

At the same time, it's important to be honest with yourself.

So, for instance, if years have passed since your loved one has died and you're still holding onto his or her clothes or keeping a room as a "shrine" to your loved one, as painful as it might be, you need to ask yourself if you're refusing to let go of your grief.

Letting go of grief doesn't mean that you don't care about your loved one.  It means that you're accepting the loss and, hopefully, finding other meaningful ways to integrate this experience into your life.

Allowing Room for Grief:  Finding Meaningful Ways to Integrate the Experience

Many people discover that when they've gone through the hardest part of their grief and they're willing to be open to what comes next, they realize that they still feel a deep and loving connection to their loved one that allows them feel close to him or her.

Getting Help in Therapy

Many people find that their grief is too overwhelming to deal with on their own or they feel stuck in the grieving process.

If you're struggling with your feelings of grief on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in helping clients with bereavement issues.

About Me

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

Helping clients to deal with grief is one of my specialties.

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:
Grief in Waiting

Inconsolable Grief After a Mother's Death

How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't

Many people feel that they have to pretend to feel happy when they don't.  I think this is due, in part, to feelings in our Western society that people should always feel happy and if they don't, they should "bootstrap" themselves out of their problems.  And, if they can't, the belief is that somehow it's their fault.

How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't

No wonder people who are unhappy often feel guilty and ashamed about their unhappiness.

Family history often plays an important part in why people feel the need to pretend to be happy, as I'll illustrate in the composite vignette later on in this article.

What Happens When You Pretend to Feel Happy When You're Not?
Pretending to feel happy is an emotional strain because it takes a lot of energy to act happy, especially  when you're feeling miserable inside.

The emotional strain can also affect not just your mental health, but also your physical health, for instance:  elevating blood pressure, affecting your immune system, causing headaches and other aches and pains, and so on.

It also makes you even more aware of the incongruity between what you're trying to project on the outside and how you really feel on the inside.

How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't

Pretending to feel happy when you don't can also make you feel inauthentic and other people might sense this lack of authenticity.

I'm not suggesting that people who are unhappy should bare their souls to strangers or reveal very personal details about their lives to coworkers.  That would be the other extreme, which also doesn't work.

Instead, I'm suggesting being true to yourself and striking a balance in your interactions with others--neither pretending to be overly happy nor spilling your feelings inappropriately to people you're not close to--as an alternative to feeling like you have to put on an act.

Even worse is feeling the need to put on an act with people who are close to you.

Anyone who is truly close to you and knows you well will sense that something is wrong, even when you deny it.

You might feel like you're trying to spare your loved one an emotional burden, but it usually works the other way:  You cause them even more stress and worry because they know something is wrong, but you're not saying what it is.

The following composite vignette, with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality, is an example of the problems of trying to hide your unhappiness from a loved one and how to overcome this problem:

Ted:
Ted and Mary were married for 10 years.  They had two sons, ages 8 and 6.

When they first got married, Ted was thrilled to be starting a new life with Mary.  He was also starting a new career.  During that period of their lives, Ted woke up feeling enthusiastic and looking forward to the day.

But during the last year or so, Ted felt like he was in a rut.  He loved Mary and their children, but he felt that their lives had become too routine and he felt bored.  He also felt like he needed a career change, but he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

Over the last several months, Mary had begun to sense that something was wrong.  Whenever she asked Ted if he was unhappy, he would laugh it off and tell her nothing was wrong.  He didn't want to worry her.

Then, he would become more animated and tease the children, but Mary wasn't convinced that something wasn't bothering Ted (see my article:  Improving Communication in Your Relationship).

By the time Ted came to therapy, at Mary's insistence, he was really feeling miserable.  He could barely pretend to be happy, and he felt even more miserable that he couldn't hide his unhappiness.  He felt like a "failure."

How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't:  "Ted"

During the initial consultation, Ted revealed how ashamed he felt that he wasn't feeling happy.  He felt that, somehow, it was his fault.

After all, from his point of view, there wasn't any reason not to feel happy, and there were people in the world who had a lot less than he did.  He felt "unjustified" in feeling unhappy.

As Ted talked about his family history, he revealed a stable family where there was no physical abuse or substance abuse.  But, as he discussed his father, the roots of his problem started to become evident (see my article:  Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Dad Now That You're a Father).

Ted spoke glowingly about his father, Jim, who had overcome many obstacles to become a successful businessman.

Jim grew up in a poor family where there was barely enough for the family to eat.  Neither of his parents graduated high school because they each had to go to work at an early age to help support their families.

Both of Jim's parents worked and Jim was also expected to maintain a job while he was in high school. As the oldest, he was also expected to help out with his younger siblings, so he had a lot of responsibility at a young age.

Not only did Jim do everything that his parents expected of him, but he also excelled in school and in sports.  He graduated at the top of his class in college, and he went on to get married and develop a successful career.

When Ted was growing up, he saw his father as "a dynamo," and Ted wanted to be just like his father.

Jim believed in "the power of positive thinking," and he told Ted and his siblings that "complaining was for sissies."  He expected them to meet whatever challenges that they had by meeting them head on without complaining, and Ted's mother went along with this.

As a Child, Ted Looked Up to His Father 

Both parents felt that they had each individually overcome personal obstacles in their early lives and there was no reason why their children shouldn't do the same.

As a result, even as a child, whenever Ted felt unhappy or anxious, he felt like it was his fault, and he was being "weak."  So he kept his feelings to himself.   He didn't want to disappoint or burden his father (see my article:  How Our Expectations and Beliefs Affect Us).

It seems that, at times, he even tried to hide his unhappiness and anxiety from himself because he felt so guilty and ashamed.

When Ted and Mary first got married, he felt genuinely happy.  But as time went on, he felt burdened by all the responsibilities that he had at home and at work, and he felt like he needed a change in his life.

It was clear that keeping this all to himself was also a huge emotional strain on him.  He also felt like the more he tried to pretend that he was happy, the less happy and the more "fake" he felt.

How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't

Admitting these feelings in therapy was also hard for Ted because he felt so deeply ashamed.

Even though his father had died several years ago, these feelings were so deeply ingrained in him that Ted felt like he was letting his father down and he was being "a sissy."

The only reason that Ted came to therapy was because Mary was worried about him and she insisted that, if he wasn't going to tell her what was wrong, at least, he could speak with a licensed mental health professional.  So, he came to therapy reluctantly.

Over time, we worked together in therapy to help Ted develop a sense of compassionate self acceptance, starting with his younger self (see my article:  Psychotherapy and Compassionate Self Acceptance).

Initially, he had problems feeling compassion for himself.  But when he thought about his own young sons and what he wanted for them, he was able to see how young he was as a child and how much was expected of him that wasn't reasonable.

He realized that, as a child, he carried a heavy emotional burden in order to please his father.

Ted knew he didn't want this for his own children, and when he saw his problem through that lens, he began to develop more compassion for himself.

Using a mind-body oriented approach, Ted used his imagination to develop a sense of what he needed as a child and, as an extension, what he needed now.

He wished that he could have had a more compassionate father who would have listened to him when he felt sad or anxious.

When he imagined what a compassionate father might be like, he came up with a detailed description of an ideal father and how that father would have been more nurturing towards him.

More importantly, he allowed himself to sense this on an emotional and physical level until it felt real.

Ted was surprised that his imagined ideal father could feel so real to him and that he could feel so taken care of by this ideal father.

So, I explained to him that when you imagine an ideal parent with such detail using a mind-body approach in therapy (like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing or clinical hypnosis), your emotional brain doesn't know the difference and feels like it is real.

Of course, the logical part of the brain knows that this imagined ideal parent wasn't the actual parent.  But most people still feel soothed by what they experience in the emotional part of their brain.  They can also use this experience as an internal emotional resource because there are ways using mind-body oriented therapy to "anchor" the experience in the body so it remains available.

By that time, Ted and I had developed a good therapeutic relationship and, together with the internal resources that he developed in therapy, he was beginning to feel better about himself.

Ted Learned to Communicate With His Wife  

Ted also learned how to communicate his feelings to his wife, Mary, so they could begin making plans for changes in their lives (see my article:  Learning to Communicate in a Healthy Way).

All of this helped Ted to feel more authentic and gave him a his sense of well being.

Getting Help in Therapy
The dynamic that I described in the composite scenario about "Ted" is a common problem for many people, so if you're experiencing this, you're not alone.

Pretending to feel happy when you don't, especially when you're pretending to your loved ones or to yourself, usually only makes you feel more unhappy and has a negative impact on your loved ones.

You might not be aware of the powerful underlying emotional issues, but a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area can help you to overcome these problems so you can feel more authentic (see my article:  How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than hiding your feelings, you can start to take action to feel better.

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.

How Unrealistic Expectations to Always "Feel Good" Contribute to Depression

Depression is one of the most common problems that bring people into therapy.  Despite all the new antidepressant medications, which were touted to be "the answer" to the problem, depression continues to rise in the US.

How Unrealistic Expectations to Always "Feel Good" Contribute to Depression

Depression manifests in variety of ways for different people on a spectrum from "low mood" to full blown major depressive disorder that can be incapacitating for people suffering with it.

As I discussed in a previous article, people who feel depressed often blame themselves for feeling low (see my article:  Overcoming Guilt and Shame About Feeling Depressed).  This is due, in part, to a societal distortion of thinking that we "should" feel happy all or most of the time and if we're not feeling happy, it must be our fault.  Needless to say, for people who are feeling depressed, this adds to their emotional burden.

I think there are many reasons, too many to enumerate here, for the increase in depression, including an increase in loneliness, social isolation and an overall decrease in life satisfaction.

An Increase in Social Isolation and Loneliness Contributes to Depression

Connecting with other people in a meaningful way after college is more difficult now, it seems to me, than ever before.  After college, making friends and finding a romantic partner can be a daunting process these days.

While it's true that you can "meet" many more people online than you ever could in person, for most people, there's something awkward and emotionally disconnected about "meeting" people online.  That being said, I also know many people who met their spouses online.

The Pursuit of Happiness and Having "More"
Although I think there are many contributing factors to the increase in depression, I'd like to focus on one that seems pervasive in our society--the expectation that all of us "should" be "feeling good" all the time, and if we don't, there's something wrong.

How the Continual Pursuit of Happiness and Having "More" Can Increase Depression

The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental part of our society in the US and in other parts of the world.  There are more self help books, motivational workshops and online courses about "feeling good" and becoming happy than ever before.  It's a booming business because of how increasingly dissatisfied and unhappy people are feeling.

This focus on happiness and "feeling good" all the time comes at a time when we're telling children that they can "be whatever they want to be" regardless of their circumstances, their effort, their talent or aptitude. It's made to so sound easy and there is no end to the success stories that are used to show children that "anything is possible."

While these strategies are meant to be motivational, it often becomes discouraging when children grow up to be adults who thought it would be easy and then realize that it actually takes, at the very least, hard work, perseverance, preparation and skills as well as some luck to succeed.

So, what happens when expectations to always "feel good" meet with a very different reality?  For many people, who hold onto this expectation, it often means that they push themselves even harder to pursue their idea of happiness without really contemplating what they're pursuing and if it will really make them happy.

For Many People the Pursuit of Happiness Often Means the Pursuit of Money

The pursuit will often involve an acquisitiveness of wanting "more"--more money, more possessions, more prestige, more "likes" on their Facebook page, and so on.  This can become a mindless, vicious cycle where, even when someone gets "more," it feels empty and increases the drive to seek "more" of whatever it is he or she is pursuing (see my article:  Is That All There Is? When "Having It All" Leaves You Feeling Empty).

Contemplating What is Meaningful
For many people, this can lead to depression because this pursuit for "feeling good" and having "more" is endless.  For those who are able to stop and reassess their lives, they have an opportunity to reflect on what's really meaningful and question whether they've been running on an endlessly turning wheel and going nowhere (see my article: A Search For a Meaningful Life).

Unfortunately, many people never get to this stage and remain on the wheel.  The faster they run, the more happiness eludes them.

For other people, symptoms of depression, which can stop them in their tracks, brings them to therapy and to reassess their lives, their expectations and what's really meaningful to them.

Contemplating What is Meaningful

If they stick with it and therapy goes well, they develop an understanding that they're not always going to feel happy, "feeling low" at certain times in life is common and it doesn't necessarily mean that something is wrong with them.

Therapy can help with an exploration of what might be unrealistic expectations as well as what's truly meaningful in life which, in the long run, is more significant than focusing on being happy all the time and having "more."

Therapy can also help you to be grateful for what you have.

Discovering what is meaningful in your life is often neither quick nor easy, but it can be the most worthwhile pursuit of your life.

In a future article, I'll continue to explore this topic and give a composite scenario to illustrate some of the points that I've discussed here.

Getting Help in Therapy
People don't often stop in their daily lives for self exploration and to consider what's meaningful.

Among its many benefits, psychotherapy provides you with an opportunity to stop doing what's not working for you, explore what's meaningful, and develop the skills and capacity to create a more meaningful life.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're feeling lost or dissatisfied with your life, you could benefit from seeing a psychotherapist who can help you to discover what's meaningful to you so you can have 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.

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

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

Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Helps Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs

In an earlier article, Self Blame and the Internal Critic, I began a discussion about how people often experience self blame.  In this article, I will discuss self blame, the need to feel in control and how experiential therapy, like EMDR, helps to achieve emotional breakthroughs.

Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs

Self blame can come in many forms, including a general feeling of "I'm wrong" or "I can't do anything right."

Self blame can also relate to a specific misfortune or trauma in one's life, including loss.

For people who are stuck and mired in self blame related to a traumatic incident, the feelings of self blame often give them the sense that they could have controlled some aspect of the traumatic event when it occurred and that this would have brought about a different outcome.

In most cases, this is an illusion and keeps people stuck emotionally at the point where the trauma incident occurred.

The following scenario is a composite of many different cases to protect confidentiality:

Rena
Rena came to therapy because she blamed herself for the death of her husband, who died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center.

Several years had passed since the tragic event and every day Rena thought about how she could have prevented her husband from dying that day if only she had insisted that he stay home from work because he wasn't feeling well.

She replayed the last moments in her mind over and over again--when she saw her husband as he was standing in their bedroom trying to decide whether to go to work or stay home.

He was sneezing and coughing, and she thought about telling him to stay home but, for some reason which she could never figure out, she didn't say it.  Instead, she told him to come home early if he felt worse and, with that, he kissed her, walked out the door, and she never saw him again.

Rena had attended cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) a few months after her husband died and, because of that therapy, she realized that she wasn't really to blame.  But her realization was very much on an intellectual level and it didn't help to dispel the grief and guilt that she felt.

Deep down on an emotional level, she still felt that if only she had insisted that her husband stay home, he would be alive today.  Even though she knew logically that this made no sense, on an emotional level, she carried this heavy burden.

The weight of her grief and guilt was such that all she could do was go to work, come home and sleep.  She no longer saw her friends or engaged in activities that she used to enjoy.

Since Rena's prior therapy only helped her in a limited way, she wanted to try a different type of therapy.

So, when her friend told her that she was able to resolve a personal trauma with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR), Rena read up on EMDR and decided that she wanted to try this experiential form of mind-body oriented therapy (see my article:  What is EMDR?).

Rena wanted to work on the memory that she replayed in her mind over and over since 9/11.

After getting Rena's personal history and helping Rena to develop coping skills to work on the trauma, which took several sessions, we began to process the trauma.

When I asked Rena to think about an image that represented the worst part of that memory, she told me that in her mind's eye, she saw her husband standing in their bedroom as he was weighing whether or not to go to work and she was standing nearby, concerned, but silent.

Just saying these words caused Rena a great deal of pain and she sobbed.  After a few moments, she stopped crying and she was able to identify where in her body she felt the grief and guilt--in her chest and throat.

Identifying feelings in the body is an important difference between experiential therapies (like EMDR) and CBT, which tends to stay on the cognitive level.

Then, in keeping with the EMDR process, I asked her what words would best describe how she feels about herself now with regard to that memory, and she said, "I should have made him stay home so he would be alive now."

In terms of how disturbing this memory was for her on a scale of 0-10 (where 0 equals no disturbance and 10 equals the most painful disturbance imaginable), Rena said it felt like a 10.

Then, I asked Rena what words best describe how she would like to feel about herself in relation to that memory, and she said she wanted to feel, "I did the best that I could."

At that point in EMDR therapy, Rena didn't feel this way about herself at all.

Before we started processing this traumatic memory, I reminded Rena that if at any time she felt she was too upset to continue, she could signal me and we could stop for a few minutes or stop altogether for the rest of the session.  It was important for her to know that she was in charge.

Although Rena experienced waves of sorrow during the EMDR processing, she did not want to stop because she felt that something was shifting inside of her, but she wasn't sure what it was yet.

This sense of internal shifting is a common experience for clients who are in EMDR therapy.

We continued to work on this memory for several more weeks.

At the end of each session, we talked about the session, and Rena continued to say that she felt something, which was unidentifiable to her, that was shifting internally.  At that point, it was still hard for her to imagine that she could ever let go of her guilt and sadness for not stopping her husband from going to work on 9/11.

Then, a few weeks later, Rena had an emotional breakthrough.

Until then, as I mentioned earlier, her understanding that her husband's death was not her fault was only a logical construct in her mind--she didn't feel it emotionally, and she continued to carry this contradiction within herself.

But on that day, as she sensed into her body to feel what emotions came up for her about the memory, she realized that she wasn't feeling self blame.  She was sad that her husband died, but she didn't feel responsible for his death.

At first, she could hardly believe that there had been this internal shift within her.

Instead of feeling self blame, she felt a deep sense of knowing that she couldn't have altered the chain of events.  She felt deeply that she wasn't to blame.  She knew deep down that no matter what she would have said, based on how her husband reacted in similar situations prior to that day, he still would have gone to work.  So, she couldn't have controlled the situation--and now she knew this on a an emotional level.

Afterwards, when we talked about this, Rena said that her sense of knowing that she wasn't to blame was different this time from how she had felt before.  She said that this time she felt it in her gut and in her heart.

She knew on a deep level that the idea that she could have changed the course of events was an illusion that she had been hanging onto.

As we continued to work together, what surfaced was that Rena's illusion that she could have changed the course of events at that pivotal point (when he was standing in the bedroom trying to decide what to do) served to keep her feeling emotionally attached to her husband--to that last time that she saw him.

This is why, prior to her emotional breakthrough, thinking about that moment over and over again was so powerful for her.

This emotional breakthrough for Rena helped her to release her grief, which had been pent up in her for several years.  It also allowed her to deal with other emotions that had been covered over by her feelings of self blame.

Over time, we continued to work on other emotional issues that arose about her husband's death, including her feelings of abandonment.  Even though she knew logically that her husband didn't choose to leave her, she experienced this common reaction that people often have when loved ones die.

Along the way, Rena learned other ways to have an internal experience of closeness for her husband without having to remain stuck in the traumatic memory.

Being able to feel the release of grief helped her to start putting her life back together again.  Gradually, she began to see friends again and she took up hobbies that she had neglected since her husband's death.

CBT as a Counteractive Therapy vs EMDR as Experiential Therapy
Each client is different and there's usually no way to know in advance what will be emotionally transformative for a particular client.

I do use CBT for some clients under some circumstances, but my experience as a psychotherapist who specializes in working with trauma, has been that, although CBT can be useful to a certain extent, it often offers limited help, particularly in situations described in the scenario about "Rena."

Of course, it's important for clients to understand on a cognitive level that they're not to blame for traumatic incidents that they could not have controlled.  But, as in the case with Rena, this kind of cognitive understanding is limited and clients will often say, "I know logically that I wasn't to blame, but I still feel on an emotional level that it was my fault."

It's important that clients understand that feeling this contradiction isn't at all unusual when it comes to trauma.

The problem with CBT in these instances is that it is a top-down approach that acts only as a counteractive force to the negative feelings that clients feel about themselves, which often keeps the internal conflict of what they know vs. what they feel in place for clients.

It provides the client with an alternative to how they're thinking, which is good, but it often doesn't change the feelings where they reside, which is deep in the limbic part of the brain.

EMDR Therapy Helps Achieve Breakthroughs

Experiential therapies, which use a bottom-up approach that involves the mind-body connection, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, clinical hypnosis and other types of experiential therapies, go to that deeper level and help to make the emotional shift that leads to emotional breakthroughs.

Skilled EMDR therapists also know how to work in a way where clients feel emotionally safe, which is important for clients who have experienced trauma.

I'll discuss this topic further in a future article.

Getting Help in Therapy
Many people live their whole lives blaming themselves for traumatic events that they could not have changed.  They live with the illusion that they could have controlled events, and this serves to keep them stuck in the memory.

For people who are stuck in this way, on an emotional level, it's as if there is no difference between "then," when the event occurred vs "now," their current life (see my article:  Overcoming Trauma With EMDR: When the Past is in the Present).

If this resonates with you, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in one of the experiential types of therapy, like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, among others.

Once you're no longer living as if you're still in that traumatic memory, you will be free to live a 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.

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

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