Balancing Fear of Failure vs. Future Regret

Many people allow their fear of failure to create obstacles in their life.  They're so afraid of what other people would think of them if they fail that they refuse to take even the most well thought out calculated risks.  Refusing to take even relatively safe risks can lead to regret in the future, so it's important to understand the root of your fears so that you don't pass up opportunities in your life only to regret it later on (see my article: Fear of Making Mistakes and Overcoming Low Self Esteem).

Balancing Fear of Failure vs. Future Regret

What Fear of Failure?
Fear of failure isn't a diagnosis.  It's an experience that many people have that often gets in the way of  their setting goals, planning or taking advantage of opportunities.

Shame is often at the core of fear of failure.  People who experience fear of failure often doubt their own capabilities even when, objectively, they are quite capable.  Self doubt causes them to back away from taking any risks.  As previously mentioned, people who experience a pervasive fear of failure often worry that if they fail, other people won't like them and they will abandon them.

The root causes of fear of failure often begin in childhood with parents who are either risk averse or who unknowingly undermine their children.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: Balancing Fear of Failure vs. Potential Regret

Renee
Renee started psychotherapy because she was having a lot of anxiety about a major decision she was facing.

She told her psychotherapist that her director offered her a promotion with a big increase in salary for what Renee considered her "dream job" in New York City.

Although her director had a lot of confidence in Renee's ability to take on this new job, Renee had doubts and she wondered if she should remain in her current job which she could do easily rather than taking a chance on this new job and risk failing.

When her director told Renee that she had a month to consider whether or not she wanted the promotion and relocation to New York City, she became highly anxious.  She ruminated about the decision and went back and forth in her mind.

She feared that if she would be in over her head in the new job and that she would disappoint her family, friends, director and colleagues.  She also feared that the people in her life would no longer respect her if she failed.

Her close friends, who knew Renee's experience and capabilities, urged her to take the job. They had confidence in Renee's skills and expertise, and they also knew that she had always wanted to live in New York.

But her parents urged Renee not to take the promotion.  They both feared that there was too much at stake with regard to Renee's career and if she didn't succeed, she might be terminated.  Her mother advised Renee to stay where she was safe in her current job rather than risk failing.

As Renee spoke with her psychotherapist, she told her that her parents were anxious people who were very risk averse.  Her father remained in the same job for 30 years, even though he was offered promotions, because he was afraid of failing.  Her mother once had dreams as a young woman of being a designer, but she never pursued her dreams because she feared the humiliation if she didn't succeed.

Each of her parents often spoke about "what if" they had gone further in life, but their regrets were fear outweighed by their need to be "safe" and not take risks.

Renee's psychotherapist asked her to try to put aside her fears and imagine what she might actually like about the new promotion.

At first, it was difficult for Renee to imagine enjoying her promotion, but when she managed to put aside her fears, her face lit up and she seemed energized.  She talked about taking on new and exciting challenges, making a lot more money, and realizing her dream of living in New York City.

As Renee and her psychotherapist weighed the risks vs. the benefits, it soon became clear to Renee that the benefits far outweighed the risks.  She also knew, when she thought about it objectively, that she could get another job that was similar to the job she was currently doing if things didn't work out with the promotion.

When she thought objectively about what the worst thing would be if the new job didn't work out, at first, she thought about how humiliated she would feel.  But, as she continued to discuss this with her psychotherapist, she realized that her friends and family would be emotionally supportive whether she succeeded or failed.

As she continued to talk to her psychotherapist about the promotion, Renee felt excited about the new opportunity, and she decided to accept the promotion.

In the interim, she and her psychotherapist worked on stress management techniques to help Renee to manage her fear and anxiety.  Her psychotherapist also recommended that when Renee moved to New York City that she find another psychotherapist to work on the deeper underlying issues that contributed to her fear of failure.

A few months after Renee was settled into her new job and new apartment in New York City, she sought help from a psychotherapist who helped clients with fear of failure.

Balancing Fear of Failure vs Future Regret

They were able to trace Renee's fear of failure back to her early childhood when her parents discouraged her from taking even the most basic risks.

Renee also remembered that her mother often expressed doubts about her abilities even when Renee was in elementary school.  Renee's sense was that her mother was being overly protective and she unknowingly caused Renee to doubt herself.  Renee had internalized her parents' fears.

Her psychotherapist recommended that they use EMDR therapy to work on Renee's fears, which included her past fears, her current fears, and her anticipated fear of failure for the future (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy? and How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain).

As Renee was working through her fear of failure with EMDR therapy, she also set limits with her parents, especially her mother, who tended to call Renee in a state of worry and panic about Renee's new promotion.  She told her mother that she appreciated her mother's concern, but her phone calls were making her anxious and her mother needed to stop talking about all the things she feared would go wrong for Renee.

As Renee continued to work with her psychotherapist using EMDR, over time, she became more confident in her ability to do her job.  She started to let go of her fear of failure and address these issues that were under her control rather than worrying about things that weren't under her control (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

Over time, Renee's confidence increased, and she received positive feedback from her new director in New York.  She also became increasingly aware that if she had turned down the promotion out of fear, she would have regretted it in the long run.  This was an important lesson for Renee with regard to balancing fear of failure vs. potential regret.

Conclusion
Life is short.  One of the common regrets expressed by older people who are close to death is that they wish they had taken more risks and not worried about what other people thought of them.

Fear of failure often has its roots in early childhood.  Whether it involved growing up with critical parents who unknowingly undermine their child's self confidence or living with risk averse parents who convey that the world is a dangerous place, children learn to fear failure and carry that fear into adulthood.

Getting Help in Therapy
Balancing fear of failure and potential regret is difficult to do if you're not aware of the underlying issues involved.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to get to the root of your problems so that you can work through your fears (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Rather than passing up opportunities that you will regret later on, you can address your fear of failure in psychotherapy so that you can lead a more fulfilling life (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome their fear of failure.

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.

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior: A Clinical Vignette

In my prior article, Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior, I discussed the importance of focusing on your inner world and how to tap into your unconscious mind in psychotherapy using experiential therapy such as EMDR therapy, clinical hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing.  In this article, I'll be providing a fictional clinical vignette to provide an example.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior

Sam
Sam began psychotherapy because he was having problems in his romantic relationships with women.

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Affects Your Behavior 

His last relationship ended in much the same way as his prior two relationships ended with his girlfriend, Jane, telling him that he was too jealous and possessive.  She was also hurt that he tended to be suspicious that she might be cheating on him when she never gave him a reason not to trust her.  After getting fed up with Sam questioning her about her whereabouts, she ended the relationship (see my article: Relationships: Overcoming Jealousy).

Sam told his psychotherapist that neither Jane nor his other girlfriends ever gave him a reason to doubt they were faithful to him, but he still had a hard time trusting women.  He had a very hard time controlling his suspicions, jealousy and possessiveness while he was in the relationship.

In hindsight, he would see that he was being irrational, but that insight never came until after the relationships ended.  Although he knew that there was no chance of repairing his relationship with Jane, he wanted to avoid behaving in this way in a future relationship.

When his psychotherapist asked Sam about his family history, Sam, who was in his mid-30s, revealed that he had only sketchy memories of his childhood.  His psychotherapist knew that this is often a sign that there was developmental trauma in childhood, but she wanted to wait until she knew more about Sam before she speculated about this.

He revealed that was the youngest of three children who grew up in New York City.  When he was in his 20s, his oldest sister, Anna, told him that their mother left the family household for several months when Sam was five and that he had a very hard time while she was away, but he had no memory of this.

Sam said that, according to Anna, their mother just disappeared one day while they were in school.  Anna told Sam that their mother had not left a note or phoned to say where she was or when she would be coming back, which worried everyone.

Anna told Sam that he was inconsolable after their mother left and he refused to go to school, but Sam had no memory of this.  He was aware that his mother eventually returned and his parents were still together, but this is all that he knew.

Sam talked about having chronic insomnia for as long as he could remember. He had problems both falling and staying asleep.  He also described problems with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), tension headaches and backaches.  He said his doctor gave him medication for IBS, which sometimes worked and sometimes did not.  His doctor also told him that his medical problems were probably psychologically related and recommended that Sam attend psychotherapy.

His psychotherapist, who was a trauma-informed therapist, also knew about the connection between various medical issues and developmental trauma, so she noted this information in Sam's therapy file and kept it in her mind.

She provided Sam with psychoeducation about psychological trauma and how unresolved childhood trauma, even trauma that people cannot remember from their childhood, can affect them later physically and psychologically as adults (see my article: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation About How Psychotherapy Works).

Then, his psychotherapist prepared Sam to work on his issues by explaining that there would be a preparation phase to their work where she would teach him to how to de-escalate his anxiety and to use self care exercises at bedtime to deal with his insomnia and to anything anxiety-producing at the end or between psychotherapy sessions (see my article: Trauma Therapy: Using Grounding Exercises Between Psychotherapy Sessions and Trauma Therapy: Using the Container Exercise Between Therapy Sessions).

After Sam began meditating, doing breathing exercises and practicing grounding and the container exercises, which helped him to calm himself and to sleep better, his psychotherapist talked to him about the Affect Bridge in clinical hypnosis and how it could help them to understand the root of his problems.  She explained that Sam would be in a safe and relaxed state while they were doing the affect bridge, and she asked him to go back to one of his memories where he was suspicious of Jane.

Sam remembered that there was an evening when Jane was late coming home from work and he was worried about her.  He tried to reach her on her cellphone, but the call went directly to her voicemail.  He said that's when he began to get anxious and suspicious that she might be with another man.

At first while he was waiting for Jane to come home, he tried to rationalize that he had no reason to believe that she was cheating on him, but his anxiety got the best of him and it just continued to escalate.

By the time Jane came home to the apartment that they were sharing, he was in a terrible state.  He went into a rant and accused her of being with another man.

Jane had been through his rants before, so she waited for him to calm down.  Then, she told him that she was stuck between stations on the subway and she had no way to make or receive calls or texts.  She got on the computer and showed him the MTA website that indicated that there were significant delays on the train line that she used.

Then, Jane had a serious talk with Sam and told him that she couldn't deal with his suspicious nature anymore and she wanted to leave the relationship. Within a week, Jane was gone.  Sam felt devastated.

His psychotherapist explained that the anxiety that he had was related to separation anxiety, and she explained this form of anxiety to him (see my article: Overcoming Separation Anxiety).

Sam's psychotherapist asked him to go back to when he felt anxious when he couldn't reach Jane and describe what he felt and where he felt it in his body now as he recalled the memory, assuming this was tolerable for him.  Sam said it was tolerable.  He described the rising state of his anxiety and the related pain in his stomach.  He also felt angry and sad.

His psychotherapist asked Sam to stay with the emotions that he was feeling and to go back to his earliest memory of feeling this same way.

In response, Sam took a couple of minutes to focus on the emotions and the pain in his stomach.  His  mind took him back to a memory of coming home from school when he was five and looking for his mother in their  family apartment.  He looked all over the apartment and couldn't find her.  After a few minutes, he felt terrified that something happened to his mother.

Alone and afraid, he called his father at work in tears.  His father came home immediately and looked around the apartment to see if he could find a note from Sam's mother.  Finding no note, he called his in-laws to find out if she was there, but they said they had not heard from her.  Sam remembered that he was inconsolable all that night, and his father stayed with him until Sam fell asleep.

When Sam opened his eyes in his psychotherapist's office, he said that he was surprised because, until they did the Affect Bridge, he had no memory of that day.

Over the next several weeks, Sam and his psychotherapist continued to work on the early childhood memory of his mother leaving the family.  He recalled that a week or so after his mother left, he overheard his father telling his oldest sister that he heard from Sam's mother and she told the father  that she left the family to be with another man.

Over time, Sam began to remember many more memories related to his childhood.  He was also able to connect his irrational feelings of jealousy and suspicion in his relationships to his childhood memory of his mother leaving the family for another man.  Once he understood the connection, his jealousy and anxiety in his relationships made sense to him.  He realized that the unresolved trauma was still getting played out in his adult life (see my article: Developmental Trauma: Living in the Present As If It Were the Past and Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma That Happened a Long Time Ago).

His psychotherapist explained to Sam that understanding the root of his problem was the first step, but understanding it alone would not be enough to overcome his problem when he got emotionally triggered in a future relationship (see my article: Coping With Trauma: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

She recommended that they use EMDR therapy to help Sam overcome the original trauma triggered his separation and abandonment anxiety(see my article: EMDR Therapy: Overcoming Childhood Trauma So You Can Have Healthier Adult Relationships and How Psychotherapy Can Help to Overcome Fear of Abandonment).

Gradually, over time, Sam and his psychotherapist used EMDR therapy and discovered that there were other similar memories of feeling abandoned that contributed to his current psychological and physical problems (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Childhood Trauma).

Eventually, Sam was able to work through his traumatic memories in EMDR therapy.  By the time he got into a new relationship, he no longer got emotionally triggered.

Conclusion
Many clients come to therapy because they don't understand why they are having problems.  Often, they are not aware of how unresolved childhood trauma affects them psychologically and physically as an adult.

Experiential therapy, like clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy, can help clients to focus on their inner world to understand how the past, even the past that is not conscious to them, affects them now.  Experiential therapy can also help clients to overcome traumatic experiences.

Getting Help in Therapy
Working with a skilled mental health professional in therapy provides an opportunity to get to the root of your problems and work through unresolved trauma (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Once you have worked through unresolved trauma, you can live a more fulfilling life free of your traumatic history.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get the help you need in therapy from an experienced psychotherapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and one of my specialties is helping clients to overcome trauma.

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

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

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior

As I've mentioned in prior articles, people's behavior is often based on unconscious thoughts and feelings, so that if you want to understand yourself, a good place to start is with your unconscious mind.   Psychotherapy provides an opportunity to understand your unconscious mind and how it affects your behavior (see my articles:  Psychotherapy: Making the Unconscious Conscious, Your Unconscious Beliefs Affect Your Sense of Reality, How Psychotherapy Helps You to Expand Your Inner Awareness, and Focusing on Your Inner Self is More Effective to Overcome Shame Than Focusing on Your Outer Self).

Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior

Some people are naturally more introspective than others.  They take the time to try to understand their unconscious mind in psychotherapy by working with their psychotherapist to become aware of their underlying thoughts, feelings and dreams and how it affects their behavior.

Other people, who are naturally more outer directed, but who also want to understand the underlying issues that affect their behavior, learn in therapy how to discover the unconscious motivation for their behavior.

A skilled psychotherapist, who works with unconscious thoughts, feelings and dreams, can help clients to develop the ability to pay attention to their inner, unconscious world to understand themselves.

When you're aware of what's going on in your unconscious mind, your behavior begins to make sense.  Whereas you might not understand your behavior before you understand the underlying issues, when you've developed the ability to understand your inner world, you begin to understand that there are coherent reasons for your behavior that you weren't able to detect before.

How to Tap Into Your Unconscious Mind

Working With Dreams:

There are many ways to tap into the unconscious mind, depending upon the experience and skills of the psychotherapist.

The most traditional way is to pay attention to your dreams (see my article: Are You Fascinated By Your Dreams?).

By keeping a pad and pen near your bed before you go to sleep, you give your unconscious mind the message that you want to remember your dreams.  

In any given night, most people have 5-6 dreams.  The ones that are easiest to remember are the ones that are closest to your waking up.  

If you want to remember your dreams, upon waking up, rather than jumping out of bed or even shifting your position, remain still for a couple of minutes (shifting your position in bed makes it more likely that the dream will elude you).  

You might start by having a sense that you have had a dream.  For instance, you might still be immersed in the mood of the dream.  Or, you might remember an image or phrase from your dream.  By being patient and waiting a minute or two, the rest of the dream might unfold, usually in reverse order.

Remembering your dreams is a skill, and much like any skill, it can take time to develop.  People who are patient and take the time often remember a few dreams each morning, especially when they are in the process of writing down the dream that was closest to their waking state.  

Just like you might remember the last part of your last dream first, you will usually remember the last dream and then the one before that and the one before that in reverse order.

There are many ways to work with dreams in psychotherapy depending upon how your psychotherapist works.  

Some psychotherapists look for images or symbols in dreams that are prominent to discover the underlying meaning of the dream.

Other psychotherapists believe that every image in the dream represents a part of the client and helps clients to understand their dreams by assisting them to discover what parts of themselves are represented in the dream.

Many psychotherapists focus on the emotion on the dream:  Was the client feeling sad, happy, scared, angry, and so on, to help the client to understand the unconscious material in the dream?

Other psychotherapists work with Embodied Imagination, developed by Neo-Jungian psychoanalyst, Robert Bosnak, to work with dreams (see my article: Dreams and Embodied Imagination and Dream Incubation: Planting Seeds).

When clients are interested in working on their dreams to understand their underlying issues related to their problems, I use all of these ways of working with dreams depending upon what works best for the particular client.  Some clients have more of an affinity for working one way than another.

Working With the Mind-Body Connection

Since the body offers a window into the unconscious mind, I also use mind-body oriented psychotherapy, like clinical hypnosis, EMDR therapy, and Somatic Experiencing, to help clients to discover underlying issues (see my article: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

In clinical hypnosis, there is a technique called the Affect Bridge, which helps clients to get to unconscious issues by asking clients to use their emotions and where they feel these emotions in the body to allow unconscious material to come to the surface.

I have found the Affect Bridge to be a very good technique that often gets to unconscious thoughts, feelings and memories related to clients' problems.

Somatic Experiencing works in a similar way.  Clients learn to pay attention to their thoughts, feelings, body sensations, images or anything else that comes up for them as we are working on a problem.  

Part of EMDR Therapy, which was originally developed to help clients to overcome psychological trauma, is also now used for many other issues. For instance, EMDR therapy is also used for performance enhancement for executive, artists, performers, writers, athletes and anyone that needs help with performance enhancement.  There is a component of the EMDR therapy protocol that involves a free associative process where clients can access associative memories and unconscious thoughts and feelings.

EMDR therapy is also used adjunctively when your primary psychotherapist does not do EMDR and you see an adjunctive EMDR therapist (see my article: What is Adjunctive EMDR Therapy?).

Conclusion

Your inner world is a rich source of information that can help you to understand your behavior.

There are many ways to tap into your unconscious mind, including dreams and mind-body oriented types of therapy, such as clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy.

In my next article, I'll provide a clinical vignette to demonstrate how focusing on your inner world can help you to understand how your unconscious mind affects your behavior (see my article: Focusing on Your Inner World to Understand How Your Unconscious Mind Affects Your Behavior: A Clinical Vignette).

Getting Help in Therapy

Without understanding your internal world, you're bound to continue to have the same problems because the root of your problem lies in the unconscious mind.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to delve beneath the surface to understand the underlying issues involved so that you can get to the root of your problems and take action to change your behavior (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If you have been struggling unsuccessfully on your own to resolve your problems, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

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.

Are You Unconsciously Choosing An Unhealthy Relationship to Fix Your Childhood Relationship With a Parent?

I've written about relationships and choosing healthier partners in prior articles (see my articles: Emotionally Unhealthy Relationships: Bad Luck or Poor Choices?, Are Your Fears of Being Alone and Lonely Keeping You in an Unhealthy Relationship? and Learning to Make Better Choices in Relationships).  In this article, I'm focusing on a particular problem with unconsciously choosing an unhealthy relationship as a way to fix your childhood relationship with your parents.

Are You Unconsciously Choosing An Unhealthy Relationship to Fix Your Childhood Relationship With a Parent?

What is Repetition Compulsion?
Most people don't consciously choose to be in emotionally unhealthy relationships.  It's usually an unconscious process based on what's familiar.  And who is more familiar to you than one or both of your parents?

The biggest problem usually occurs when people unconsciously choose a partner who is similar to one or both parents in an effort to fix their childhood relationship with their parents.

With regard to relationships, the unrecognized wish behind this unconscious process is that the repetition of a dysfunctional family pattern in a romantic relationship will provide a chance to repair what couldn't be repaired in childhood with the parents.

This dynamic is known as repetition compulsion in psychotherapy.  When people engage in repetition compulsion, they are repeating traumatic circumstances over and over again in situations where the pattern will most likely be repeated in an unconscious effort to repair the original trauma.  

People who start psychotherapy often don't see these patterns at first.  After their psychotherapist hears about the family dynamic and recognizes the same dynamic in the romantic relationship, the therapist recognizes that the client is engaging in repetition compulsion.

The person who chooses a romantic partner who has the same dynamics as one or both of his parents doesn't always see the similarity between the romantic partner and the parent.  There can be a certain amount of denial about it.  But, usually, over time, client in therapy will recognize it as the therapy evolves.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: The Problem With Choosing an Unhealthy Relationship to Try to Fix Your Childhood Relationship With Your Parents
The following fictional clinical vignette is about the unconscious process of repetition compulsion in an unhealthy relationship and how it involves a wish to fix a childhood dysfunctional relationship:

Meg
Meg started psychotherapy because she was having problems in her one year relationship with her boyfriend, Ed.

Are You Unconsciously Choosing An Unhealthy Relationship to Fix Your Childhood Relationship With a Parent? 

During the first six months of their relationship, Meg and Ed got along well.  They enjoyed each other's company and spent a lot of time together.

After five months, Ed moved into Meg's apartment and this is when the problems began.  Then, when they were together for six months, Ed quit his job after he got into a disagreement with his supervisor.

Meg was annoyed that he left his job without finding another job first and that he was making no effort to try to find another job.

When she came home from her stressful job, she would see Ed laying down on the couch watching TV instead of job hunting.  Since she was now carrying the financial burden for the two of them, she told him that it annoyed her to see him loafing around and allowing her to take responsibility for their joint expenses.

Whenever this topic came up, they would argue.  Ed told Meg that he would find another job, but he didn't like to be pressured by her.  He said if the roles were reversed, he wouldn't complain about it.  He said he would give her time and space to figure out her next move.  And Meg argued that she wouldn't leave her job without having another job, so it was unlikely that their roles would be reversed.

Six months later, Ed was still making no effort to find a job, and Meg was furious.  She complained about it to her psychotherapist during the first two therapy sessions.  Although she was very angry, she didn't want to throw Ed out of her apartment.  She felt that it would be cruel to tell him to leave, so she allowed him to stay, but they were barely on speaking terms.

When Meg's psychotherapist asked her about her family background, Meg described a dysfunctional family dynamic.  She was the older of two daughters who witnessed their parents arguing a lot.

Meg explained that her father had problems keeping jobs because he tended to quit whenever there was a problem on the job instead of trying to resolve the problem.  This placed all the financial burden on Meg's mother, and it was a source of frequent arguments.

Although her mother complained a lot and her parents argued about the father's unstable work history, her mother frequently told Meg and her sister that she would never break up the family.  And the father spent more time being unemployed than working.  As a result, nothing ever changed, and the mother struggled financially throughout all of Meg's childhood to support the family.

As a child, Meg was closer to her father than she was to her mother.  Whereas she thought her mother was often irritable and short tempered with her, she thought her father was more sensitive, nurturing and patient.

Meg disliked hearing her mother call the father "lazy" and "inconsiderate," and she would defend her father to her mother, which escalated these arguments.  Meg would take her father's side, and her sister would take her mother's side.  This created tension in all their relationships.

When her psychotherapist pointed out the similarities between her parents' dynamics and her relationship with Ed, Meg got annoyed.  She didn't think these situations were similar at all, and she was offended that her therapist would say this.

Meg said that her father was a sensitive, compassionate man, but Ed was insensitive and inconsiderate.  For the next few weeks, Meg continued to defend her father and she maintained that her father was different from her Ed.

Meg's psychotherapist realized that, at that point in therapy, Meg idealized her father and she had a blind spot about his problems, so she realized that Meg wasn't ready to deal with this issue.

A few months later, Meg was sufficiently fed up with Ed that she decided to give him a three month deadline to either find a job and contribute to their joint expenses or move out.  In order to meet their expenses, Meg had to take on freelance work in addition to her full time job just to make ends meet, and she was exhausted.

The three month deadline came and went and Ed still refused to look for a job.  They were now arguing more than ever, and Meg really resented Ed, but she couldn't bring herself to follow through with her ultimatum.  Despite her anger and frustration, she allowed him to stay.

Her psychotherapist explored this with Meg in a nonjudgmental way to help Meg to get curious about it.  Over time, when Meg became less defensive, she could see the parallels between her relationship with Ed and her mother's relationship with her father.

Gradually, Meg developed insight into how she was looking at her father through the eyes of her younger self.  She realized that she idealized her father when she was a child because she needed to see him as being her "big, strong dad," and she was continuing to do this as an adult.

Although it made Meg feel sad to see her father's problems, she dealt with the loss of this idealization in therapy.  She also had a lot more empathy for her mother and realized that her mother was frequently irritable when Meg was a child because she was exhausted.

Meg also realized that, even though she idealized her father most of the time when she was a child, she admitted that to her psychotherapist that there were times when she felt angry and disappointed with her father.  But she never allowed herself to remain immersed in those feelings as a child because it was too overwhelming for her.  She needed to see her father as a hero.

Gradually, Meg realized that deep down she always knew, even when she was a child, that her father had these problems, but she didn't want to see it.

She also realized that she had made an unconscious choice to be in a relationship with Ed and remain in that relationship as a way to try to fix her childhood relationship with her father, "I never realized before that I thought I could fix Ed and, in a way, it felt like I could fix my dad.  My mother could never fix my dad, but I thought it would be different with Ed and me.  I really thought I could change him."

Now, she saw her father as someone that she loved very much, but she also accepted that he had problems.  She also realized that she couldn't fix her deep-seated childhood problems with her father by being in a relationship with someone who had similar problems or by trying to repeat her parents' relationship with Ed in order to have a different outcome.

Shortly after this, Meg told Ed that he needed to move out, and she no longer felt guilty about it.  By asking him to move out, in effect, this ended the relationship, but she felt better about herself.  She no longer felt like a victim in her relationship.

Afterwards, Meg dealt with the loss of the relationship in therapy.  Even though she and Ed weren't getting along by the time the relationship ended, she still recognized it as a loss.

Meg also continued to work on her childhood problems in therapy so that she wouldn't repeat the same mistake in the future by getting into another unhealthy relationship, and she could make healthier choices.

Conclusion
It's difficult to see your unconscious dynamics on your own.  Even when you're in therapy, you might have a blind spot for these dynamics before you're ready to see them.

The repetition compulsion of repeating earlier family patterns is common.

When people don't see that they're unconsciously choosing an unhealthy relationship as a way to fix an earlier relationship with parents, they can go from one dysfunctional relationship to another without seeing that they're repeating the pattern over and over again.

People often come to therapy because they're having problems in their relationship, and they believe that the problem is with their particular partner at the time instead of seeing that it's the same dynamic repeating itself with different people.

Once you're ready to explore the unconscious dynamics in therapy, part of the work is grieving for what you can't fix in your childhood history.

You will probably grieve the end of your relationship if you realize that it's emotionally unhealthy for you, but you also have a chance to make a positive change in your life and choose a healthier relationship in the future if you work through the repetition compulsion.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're struggling with problems that you've been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to work through these problems (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

As I mentioned earlier, unconscious behavior is difficult to see on your own, but working with a skilled psychotherapist can help you to recognize and change these unhealthy patterns (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to recognize and change unconscious dynamics that were making them unhappy.

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.

Trauma Therapy: Using Grounding Techniques Between Psychotherapy Sessions

In my last article, Trauma Therapy: Using the Container Exercise Between Therapy Sessions, I discussed the importance of the preparation phase of trauma therapy and how the container exercise can help with emotional containment and coping with difficult emotions between psychotherapy sessions or at the end of a psychotherapy session.  In this article, I'm continuing to focus on grounding techniques.

Trauma Therapy: Using Grounding Techniques Between Psychotherapy Sessions

What is Grounding?
Just like the container exercise that I mentioned in my last article, grounding is a stress management technique to help you calm down and be in the present moment.

Grounding is especially helpful when you're in trauma therapy.  It helps you to transition from the memories you're working on in therapy to the present moment so that you're not overwhelmed by thoughts, feelings, images, body sensations or other uncomfortable things that might come up when you process traumatic memories in therapy.

Aside from helping you between or at the end trauma therapy sessions, ground techniques can also help you to calm down and cope when you're generally under stress or anxiety.

How Do You Know If You're Not Emotionally Grounded?
People who have experienced longstanding psychological trauma often become "accustomed" to living with high intensity anxiety and this feels "normal" to many of them.

As a result, they might not know when they're not emotionally grounded and might only see the difference once they've experienced what it's like to feel emotionally grounded or calm.

Signs of Possibly Not Being Emotionally Grounded:
Some of the following signs might be signs that you're not emotionally grounded, especially if you experience many of these symptoms:

• Experiencing anxiety and worry most of the time
• Causing or participating in emotional drama much of the time
• Being spaced out (or dissociated) much of the time
• Getting easily distracted often
• Ruminating obsessively 
• Obsessing frequently about how you look or what others think about you
• Having frequent problems falling or staying asleep
• Having chronic pain
• Having inflammation in your body
• Having poor circulation
• Feeling fatigued most of the time

The Benefits of Being Emotionally Grounded
Generally speaking, being emotionally grounded can have the following potential benefits:

• Getting better sleep
• Reducing anxiety and worry
• Improving concentration and focus
• Reducing rumination
• Reducing fears about your image and what others think of you
• Reducing chronic pain
• Reducing inflammation in your body
• Improving circulation
• Reducing fatigue

Grounding Exercises
There are many types of grounding exercises.  I'll mention an easy one, the body scan, in this article that you can practice.  This grounding exercise is often used in trauma therapy, and it can also be beneficial any time you feel the need to calm yourself.

Trauma Therapy: Using Grounding Techniques Between Psychotherapy Sessions

In order for grounding exercises to have a beneficial effect, you need to practice grounding regularly.

If you're experiencing unresolved psychological trauma, it's best to see a trauma-informed psychotherapist before you try anything new.

Before starting any grounding exercises, consult with your psychotherapist.  This particular grounding exercise is generally good for most people, but there might be a particular reason why you shouldn't do it, so speak to your psychotherapist first.

The Body Scan:  

• Sitting up with your feet flat on the floor, start by taking a few deep breaths and, if it feels comfortable for you, close your eyes.  If you feel uncomfortable or unsafe closing your eyes, pick a spot on the floor to focus on so your attention doesn't wander.

• Paying attention to your feet, which are placed flat on the floor, notice how the floor supports the weight of your body.  If it feels comfortable for you, you can imagine that there are vines growing from the soles of your feet which connect to the earth so you feel yourself securely rooted.  If that feels uncomfortable, stay focused on how the floor and the earth below the floor support your feet.  

• Focusing on the crown of your head, move your attention slowly through your body and notice where you're holding onto tension in your body.  Don't forget your eyes, which hold a lot of tension.  Allow the muscles in your eyes to relax instead of holding them fixed (this is easier to do if your eyes are closed or semi-closed).  Also, pay attention to the tension you hold in your jaw and tongue.  Allow your jaw to relax and your tongue to settle at the bottom of your mouth.  Then, proceed throughout the rest of your body.  Wherever you sense tension, picture the tension melting away or going through your limbs and out of your body.  

• Take a few moments to notice and enjoy your relaxed state.

• Before opening your eyes, picture the room that you're in with your mind's eye and be aware of the chair or couch where you're sitting.  

• Opening your eyes gently, take a look around the room and orient yourself to your surroundings.  Continue to feel your feet planted on the ground for a few moments before you transition to doing something else.

If this exercise feels uncomfortable to you in any way, stop doing it until you can talk about it or practice doing it with your psychotherapist.  As I mentioned earlier, it's always best to consult with your psychotherapist before you begin any form of grounding exercise.

Also see my articles:
Coping Strategies in Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy
Wellness: Safe Place Meditation
Learning to Relax: Square Breathing

Conclusion
Using grounding techniques, like the body scan, can help to calm you.

If you're struggling with unresolved trauma, it's best to work with a trauma-informed psychotherapist to resolve your trauma.

Generally, the body scan grounding exercise is safe for most people, but speak to your therapist before beginning any grounding exercises.

Getting Help in Therapy
Unresolved trauma doesn't resolve on its own.  It can be debilitating on an emotional and physical level.  We also know now that it can have intergenerational effects and affect your children and generations that follow, so it's important to get help (see my article: Psychotherapy and Transgenerational Trauma).

Rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma (see my articles: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

After you have worked through your trauma, you'll have a chance to live a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I specialize in helping individual adults and couples to overcome unresolved trauma.

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

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

Trauma Therapy: Using the Container Exercise Between Therapy Sessions

Processing unresolved trauma with a skilled trauma-informed psychotherapist can be one of the most healing things that you do for yourself.  Over time, unresolved trauma can have detrimental emotional and physical effects.  It can also have unintended repercussions for your children (see my article: Your Unresolved Trauma Can Have Repercussions For Your Children).  

Although working through psychological trauma is beneficial for you and your family, you need to know how to take care of yourself between your psychotherapy sessions, which is why I'm discussing the container exercise in this article (see my article: Is Self Care Selfish?).

Using the Container Exercise Between Psychotherapy Sessions

Why is the Preparation Stage of Trauma Therapy Important?

The concept of emotional containment is very important when you're working on psychological trauma in therapy because processing trauma doesn't stop when you leave your psychotherapist's office.  It continues between sessions, sometimes consciously and often unconsciously.

Having a way to cope with whatever comes up between therapy sessions is essential and, hopefully, your psychotherapist has taken time in the preparation phase of trauma therapy to teach you various coping skills to deal with whatever comes up when you're not in therapy (see my article: Developing Internal Resources and Coping Strategies).

In my opinion as a trauma therapist, some therapists rush too quickly to process the trauma before they have helped clients with the necessary preparation work.  This tends to occur with psychotherapists who might have been trained to do trauma work a long time, before there was less of an emphasis on preparation, and they haven't updated their skills.

Also, some therapists want to respond to clients' demands that they start processing trauma immediately before clients are emotionally prepared to do the work. While it's understandable that clients want relief from the effects of unresolved trauma as soon as possible, trauma therapists need to explain why it's important to help clients prepare to do the work and assess a client's readiness.

Clients who aren't sufficiently prepared during the preparation phase of trauma therapy are often overwhelmed by processing their trauma.  If they haven't gone through the preparation phase of trauma therapy, they often don't have the skills to cope with the emotions that come up.

The worst part is that some clients, who aren't sufficiently prepared and who feel overwhelmed in trauma therapy, leave prematurely and they might be too afraid to see another trauma therapist (see my article:  When Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely).

What is the Container Exercise?

The container exercise is one way to cope with difficult emotions that come up between psychotherapy sessions.

This exercise can also be used at the end of a trauma therapy session.  In a prior article, I discussed other helpful coping strategies that might be useful to you.

The container exercise is a simple yet powerful coping strategy where you use your imagination to create a container to temporarily place any disturbing thoughts, feelings, memories, images, physical sensations, dreams or whatever is disturbing to you so that you don't feel overwhelmed until your next psychotherapy session.

Some people like to imagine that their container remains in their psychotherapist's office so that they leave whatever comes up that's disturbing with their therapist until the next time. Where you decide to imagine your container is up to you.  Choose a place that feels right.

Steps For Doing the Container Exercise

The following steps are part of the basic container exercise and you can enhance them in whatever ways feel meaningful to you:

• Begin by taking a few deep, cleansing breaths and, if it feels comfortable for you, close your eyes.  If closing your eyes doesn't feel comfortable, you can focus on a particular spot on the floor so that your attention doesn't wander.

• Now imagine a safe and secure container of whatever type, size, color feels right for you. Take whatever time you need to make this personally meaningful and decide where you want to imagine keeping it.

• Imagine yourself placing whatever is disturbing you in this container.

• Imagine yourself shutting the container and making it secure in whatever way feels right to you (e.g., locking it, locking it and burying it underground or in the ocean, etc).

• If anything else comes up that's disturbing to you during the week, you can place it in your container until you're ready to talk to your therapist about it at your next session.

Conclusion

The preparation phase of trauma therapy is an important part of getting ready to do trauma work so that you don't feel overwhelmed.  

Some clients need more time in the preparation phase than others.  This is something that your psychotherapist will assess before you process trauma.

The container exercise is one way to deal with anything disturbing that comes up between psychotherapy sessions.  It can also be used at the end of a trauma session to help you to de-stress.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with a skilled trauma therapist who can help you to overcome your trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

There is no quick fix for overcoming trauma, especially developmental trauma, but a skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome trauma with safe and effective trauma therapies, including:  

• EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Parts Work

• Clinical Hypnosis (also known as hypnotherapy)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article:  The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I specialize in helping clients to overcome both shock trauma and developmental trauma.

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

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

How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself

Psychological trauma, especially developmental trauma, usually has a negative impact on your perception of yourself.  This is one of the reasons why your beliefs about yourself are addressed in trauma therapy. 

For instance, in EMDR therapy, an important part of therapy is asking about your negative belief about yourself in relation to the traumatic memories that you and your psychotherapist are working on.

How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself

It's not unusual for people who have experienced developmental trauma, which is childhood trauma, to have one of the following beliefs about themselves:

• "I'm unlovable."
• "I'm powerless."
• "I'm no good."
• "I'm a terrible person."
• "I'm weak."

and so on.

Objectively, these same people might know that their beliefs about themselves are distorted but, at the same time, they still have these negative self perceptions, and trying to rationalize it away doesn't help them.

Clinical Vignette: How Psychological Trauma Affects Your Perception of Yourself
The following clinical vignette illustrates these points:

Cindy
Cindy decided to start psychotherapy because she knew that her low self esteem was creating problems for her in her personal life as well as in her career.

Whenever she dated a man that she really liked, she worried that after he got to know her, he wouldn't like her and he would stop seeing her.  There wasn't anything in particular she dreaded that he would find out.  It was more a general feeling that she had about herself (see my article: Overcoming the Fear That People Wouldn't Like You If They Knew the "Real You").

As a marketing representative, she often had creative ideas about how to market the company's products, but she hesitated to talk to her manager about her ideas because she second guessed herself.  But when one of her colleagues came up with a similar idea and received praise from the manager, Cindy regretted that she didn't speak up when she had the idea.

When Cindy started therapy, she didn't know why she had such low self esteem but, as she talked to her psychotherapist about her family background, she began to see the connection between her low self esteem and her childhood history.

She told her psychotherapist that she was aware from a young age that her parents never wanted to have children and she was considered "a mistake."

Her parents provided for her basic needs, but they weren't loving and nurturing towards her.  She spent most of her time with her nanny or the housekeeper because her parents told her that they were too busy to spend time with her (see my articles: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect? and What is the Connection Between Childhood Emotional Neglect and Problems Later On As An Adult?).

As an only child, Cindy often felt lonely.  She used to love going to her best friend's house because her friend's mother was kind and affectionate.  Her friend's mother would read stories to Cindy and her friend and play with them.

After Cindy moved out to go to college, she never moved back home again.  Instead, she and some of her college roommates got an apartment together in New York City and shared the rent.  She went home on holidays for the "obligatory family visits," but her relationship with her parents remained strained (see my article: How to Cope With Difficult Family Visits).

As Cindy and her psychotherapist talked about her memories of childhood, Cindy realized that ever since she could remember, she felt unlovable.

Even as a child, she felt that if she was a lovable child, her parents would care more about her.  She blamed herself for their emotional neglect, as young children often do.

At her psychotherapist's suggestion, Cindy chose a childhood memory to work on with EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) that was emblematic of her childhood experiences (see my articles: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain and EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough).

Cindy was five years old in this memory.  She remembered that it was a rainy day so she couldn't go outside, and she felt lonely and bored at home, so she told her mother that she felt "all alone" and "bored."

She hoped that her mother would spend time with her, read a story to her or just talk.  But her mother gave Cindy an annoyed look, "Cindy, can't you see that I'm busy reading?  Go to your room and find a book that you can read on your own and don't bother me."

Cindy remembered going to her room, throwing herself on the bed and crying.  Her mother was in the next room and she probably heard Cindy crying, but she didn't come to Cindy's room to try to soothe her.  Instead, Cindy was left on her own to cry it out.

After Cindy and her psychotherapist completed the preparation phase EMDR therapy to work on this memory, as part of the EMDR protocol, Cindy's psychotherapist asked Cindy, "What's the negative belief you have about yourself?" in relation to this memory.

Cindy responded, "I'm unlovable" (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

This was the first time that Cindy connected her feelings of being unlovable to how she was treated by her parents when she was a child.  Now, it made sense to her why she would feel this way about herself.

Cindy and her therapist continued to work on her feelings of being unlovable using EMDR therapy.  Many other similar memories came up as well as a deep sense of shame for feeling that she wasn't a lovable child.

How EMDR Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Developmental Trauma

After several months, Cindy and her therapist completed the EMDR therapy, and Cindy no longer felt unlovable.  Her self esteem improved so that she felt more confident when she went out on dates.  She also felt that she was a lovable person and she deserved to be loved.   At work, she was more assertive about making suggestions, and her manager recognized her work by promoting her.

Conclusion
Many people who experienced developmental trauma as children don't connect their poor sense of self and negative beliefs about themselves to their unresolved trauma.

EMDR therapy explores these feelings and beliefs directly so that clients can begin to make the connection and, eventually, work through them.

There is no quick fix for overcoming unresolved trauma.  Even though EMDR therapy tends to be more effective and tends to work faster than regular talk therapy, each person processes trauma in his or her individual way and in his or her own time.

Getting Help in Therapy
A negative belief or self perception is often linked to unresolved trauma.

If you have been struggling with feelings of low self worth, you could benefit from working with an experienced psychotherapist who has an expertise in helping clients overcome traumatic experiences (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Rather than suffering on your own, you can work with a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to overcome your history of trauma so you can lead a more fulfilling life (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

As a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I work with individual adults and couples.  

I have helped many clients to overcome their traumatic experiences.

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.