When Idealized Heroes Falter

As a psychotherapist in New York City, who is a trauma specialist, I often hear from adult clients how disappointing it was for them as children, and even as adults, when their idealized heroes faltered.

When Idealized Heroes Falter

This topic often comes up when I'm preparing a client to do attachment-related EMDR therapy (see my article: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain), and it's an opportunity to work through these issues.

As part of the preparation, I help clients to imagine a safe or relaxing place.  I also ask clients to come up with three people (real or imagined) who embody the qualities of being powerful, nurturing and wise.  I also offer the possibility, if they prefer, to name one person who embodies all of these qualities.

This is the resourcing part of the preparation phase of EMDR, and the three real or imagined people are used later on in EMDR processing, if necessary, as imaginal interweaves (as developed by EMDR expert, Laurel Parnell, Ph.D.).

Specifically, during the processing phase of EMDR, clients might run into difficulty and need to imagine one or more of the qualities embodied by these people to get through a difficult part of the trauma work.  Often these interweaves aren't needed if the processing of the trauma is going smoothly, but it's good to have them already set up before the processing of the trauma begins.

Depending upon their traumatic history, some clients struggle to come up with real or imagined people and I help them to come up with people who are meaningful in their lives either in the present or in the past.

It's often at that point that clients will talk about idealized heroes that disappointed them at some point in their lives, especially as children.

Sometimes, if these clients didn't process these disappointments with anyone before, their perspective about their disappointment can remain childlike, which is understandable because it's as if the disappointment is frozen in time.

At that point, it can helpful for a psychotherapist to help the client to develop an adult perspective about the former idealized hero who faltered, one that includes empathy and compassion if that's possible (see my article: Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From an Adult Perspective).

Fictional Clinical Vignette: When Idealized Heroes Falter
The following fictional vignette illustrates how an adult client in therapy can come to terms with his his disappointment about an idealized hero from his childhood:

Tom
Tom was in his early 40s when he began attending psychotherapy to deal with a traumatic history of emotional abuse.  He said he never thought he would come to therapy, but he realized that his history of emotional abuse was getting in the way of his having a relationship and he couldn't ignore it anymore.

After the initial consultation and sessions about his family history, the therapist explained EMDR therapy to Tom, including the various phases of EMDR.  They began the resourcing phase, which included coming up with a relaxing place and the three imaginal interweaves mentioned above (wise, nurturing and powerful people who are either real or imagined).

Since Tom experienced childhood emotional abuse by his father, it wasn't surprising that he had problems coming up with the imaginal interweaves because his whole world had been turned upside down by the emotional abuse.  The therapist told Tom that they could forgo this part of the preparation if he preferred, but Tom said he wanted to do this part and he would think about it between therapy sessions.

When he returned for his next psychotherapy session, Tom told his therapist that he remembered something that he hadn't thought of in a long time:  His disappointment in a neighbor, Jim, who was someone that Tom looked up to as a child and who was a friend and a hero to him.

Tom said that Jim lived with his wife in the same apartment building in Brooklyn where Tom and his family lived.  Jim was a mechanic and he had his own business a few blocks away from the apartment house.  He and his wife had no children of their own, but all the children in the neighborhood who knew Jim liked him.

On his days off, Jim would coach Little League games.  He was also active in the community, and he was instrumental in helping to set up the Police Athlete League (PAL) in Tom's neighborhood so the children had a place to play and learn.

The times that Tom liked best was when he and Jim would sit on the stoop to talk.  Tom felt he could talk to Jim about almost anything.  They would spend hours sitting on the stoop talking about sports, school, homework or whatever topic came up.

Tom never confided in Jim about how emotionally abusive his father was, but Tom sensed that Jim knew and that he was compassionate towards Tom and tried to be emotionally supportive.

Jim also talked about how when he was 18, he joined the Marines to get away from a difficult home life.  Afterwards, he said, he trained to be a car mechanic, met the woman who would eventually become his wife, and opened his own business with a partner.

Tom told his psychotherapist that from that day on Jim became his hero, and listening to Jim speak gave Tom hope that one day he would overcome his current circumstances at home.  It was at that point that Tom began talking to Jim about what he might want to do when he grew up.  It was the first time that Tom ever allowed himself to think he might be happy in the future.

Tom's friendship with Jim continued from the time Tom was in elementary school until he graduated high school.  It was Jim who encouraged Tom to participate in sports in high school and to apply to colleges.

Then, one day, when Tom came home on Spring break from college and he went to visit Jim, Jim's wife opened the door and told Tom that Jim wasn't there.  When Tom asked her where he was, she told Tom to come in and sit down.

After they sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity to Tom, Jim's wife lowered her eyes and told Tom that Jim was incarcerated for embezzling money from the business that he and his partner owned.  His partner pressed charges, and Jim admitted that he took the money.

When she raised her eyes, she could see that Tom was shocked and she said, "I know you idolized Jim.  I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I thought it would be better for you to hear it from me."

He remembered that after she told him about Jim's incarceration, all he could say was, "But why?  Why did he do it?"

"There's no excuse for it, Tom," she said, "We were going through hard times financially.  After he was caught, he told me that he did it and planned to pay back every penny that he took, but he was caught before he could do that.  I can't believe it myself. It's so out of character for Jim."

Tom told his psychotherapist that prior to going home on Spring break, he had been out of touch with Jim for a few months, so he knew nothing about this until Jim's wife told him.  After he got over the shock, he felt deeply angry with Jim.

He thought about all the times that Jim talked to Tom about honesty and integrity.  After he heard what Jim did, all he could think was that Jim was a hypocrite and he was foolish for ever befriending Jim and believing in him.

He told his psychotherapist, "He was my hero.  He would have been the one that I would have chosen as a 'powerful' person, if he didn't end up going to prison.  After I found out what happened, I didn't make an attempt to ever reach out to him again."

Tom's psychotherapist could tell that, even though Tom was in his early 40s, he was stuck. His reaction to Jim was coming from his adolescent self and not his adult self.

They spent several sessions talking about how disappointed Tom was in Jim, and how he never saw Jim again, even after he got out of prison.  Eventually, Jim and his wife moved out of the neighborhood and Tom had no idea where they went.

Over the course of the next several sessions, Tom continued to talk about his feelings, and he mentioned that he was also having dreams about Jim.  His psychotherapist helped Tom to see that anger towards Jim covered over his deep sadness and disappointment (see my article: Discovering That Sadness is Often Hidden Underneath Anger).

Gradually, Tom began to see that, although what Jim did was wrong, Jim was human and he made a mistake.  He also realized that Jim never meant to hurt anyone and he must have been desperate to steal the money from his partner, even if he planned to pay it back, as his wife said.

Tom began looking at his relationship with Jim from an adult perspective.  His attitude towards Jim softened, and he was able to see that, even though Jim made a mistake that he paid for by going to prison, Jim helped him in many ways.  He realized that he probably wouldn't have studied as hard and gone to college if it hadn't been for Jim.  He also realized that Jim fulfilled an important role in his life at a crucial time, and he was grateful for that.

With that, Tom and his therapist were able to go on to complete the preparation phase of EMDR and process his childhood trauma of being emotionally abused by his father.

Eventually, Tom found out where Jim and his wife lived and sent Jim a letter expressing his gratitude for all that Jim had done for him when he was a child.  A few weeks after that, Jim invited Tom over to reconcile their friendship.

Tom could see that Jim had aged a lot since he last saw him more than 20 years ago, but he still had the same warm smile.

Jim acknowledged to Tom that he was wrong for stealing the money, regardless of his financial circumstances.  He also apologized to Tom for disappointing him.   Jim told him that when he was in prison, he often thought about Tom and some of the other children in the neighborhood, and he knew that he let them down.

Tom could tell that Jim was deeply affected by their reconciliation, and Tom felt the last vestiges of his anger slipping away.

Conclusion
People who are idealized heroes in our lives are human and have flaws, just like anyone else.

Even comic book superheroes have flaws: Clark Kent, who was Superman in the comics, comes to mind with regard to his powerlessness around kryptonite.  Despite his courage and superhuman  abilities, deep down he felt like an outsider because he was an orphan.  Those were feelings that he kept to himself.

Coming to terms with the faltering of an idealized hero can be difficult for a child, and it can even be difficult for an adult looking back on his experiences with a hero.

Parents can talk to a child about mistakes that the child made as a way to help the child to see the humanity in the child's hero.  But when there's no one for a child to process these feelings with, these feelings often remain frozen and somewhat childlike.

With the help of a psychotherapist, a client can look back on his disappointment that his hero faltered and learn to develop empathy and compassion.  He can also learn that it's not an all-or-nothing experience, and he can still appreciate and be grateful for all that was positive in their relationship (see my article: Overcoming All or Nothing Thinking).

Getting Help in Therapy
Psychotherapy can help you to work through traumatic experiences from your past so that you can free yourself from the trauma in your history (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Rather than suffering on your own, you can get help from a licensed mental health professional who can assist you to overcome a traumatic history 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).

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.

Theater: Edward Albee's Play - Three Tall Women: Three Perspectives From Three Stages of a Life

In Edward Albee's autobiographical two-act play, Three Tall Women, the protagonist, who is referred to as A, is represented at three different stages of her life.

Three Perspectives From Three Stages of a Life

In the first act, the three women are shown as three separate women:

• A: the protagonist, is a 92 year old woman suffering with dementia and physical challenges 

• B: is A's 52 year old caretaker

• C: is a 26 year old lawyer sent from A's law firm who has come to A's home to help straighten out A's financial matters which are in disarray because A forgets to pay her bills

Act One
The play doesn't really have a plot.  Instead, it has several themes.

The main themes of the play are aging, mortality, gender, and family relationships. These themes are presented in the first act with A reminiscing about when she was young, her relationships with her sister and mother, her relationship with her husband, and the days when she won awards for horseback riding (see my article: Making Peace With the Aging Process).

Even though A struggles with her memory, she talks almost non-stop about her youth and the early days of her marriage.  Even though she wasn't in love with her wealthy husband, she remembers her life as having some happy times, despite her husband's philandering with other women.

A also talks about her son and the conflicts they had about his homosexuality, which led to their 20 year estrangement.  In Act One, even though she is still opposed to her son being gay, she also misses him and wonders why he doesn't come to visit her more often and, when he comes, why he doesn't stay longer (see my article: Dealing With Homophobia in Your Family).

Her caretaker, B, is compassionate, although she is also weary of taking care of A.  She tries to soothe A when she is upset about her faltering memory and her problematic relationship with her son.  But C, the young attorney, is impatient with A.  She gets annoyed with A's vanity when A tries to say she is 91 and not 92.

A reminisces about her mother and how they had a good relationship with when A was a young girl.  But by the time her mother is older and she moves in with A, their relationship changed.  Her mother resents that she is old and frail, and A believes her mother hated and resented her at that point.

By the end of Act One, as A reminisces about those later difficult days with her mother, she has a stroke, and B and C are contact the doctor and A's son.

Act Two
In Act Two, A, B, and C are now aspects of the protagonist--A, at different stages of her life: her youth, her middle-age years, and her final years.

The aspect of A who had the stroke is on her death bed with an oxygen mask, and her son sits silently on the bed next to her stroking her hand.

The aspect of A who is up and walking around is no longer frail or demented.  She has her full faculties and she's talking to the younger aspects of herself, B and C.

C, who is 26, is still optimistic about her life.  She is hoping that the best times in her life are yet to come.  But when she hears B, who is 52, and A, who is 92, tell her about what's to come in her future, she's ambivalent about hearing it.  Part of her wants to know, but another part of her is horrified.  She can't believe that she will change so much between her youth and old age.  She also can't believe that she will alienate her only son later on in her life.  She vows that she will never become like B and A.

B is somewhat jaded about life, but she believes she is living the best part of her life now in her middle age with much of the hardships behind her.  But when she looks at the aspect of A on her death bed and the aspect of A in front of her, who is telling her what's to come in her life, she is also ambivalent about hearing about it.

A watches the aspect of herself lying in a coma on her death bed as her son sits with her--the same son who left and stayed away for 20 years because she couldn't tolerate his homosexuality.  Although he would really be middle aged when she is dying, she sees him as he appeared on the day he left the household when he was a young man.

At the end of the play, A faces the audience and tells them that the best time in her life is now--at the end of her life.  She says that as her life is ending, it's the happiest moment of her life.

Some Thoughts About the Play
As I mentioned, it's generally acknowledged that Three Tall Women is an autobiographical play.  Edward Albee was adopted by a wealthy couple who moved him from one private school to another.  From what I've read, it appears that he wasn't close to his adopted parents, who were so different from him.

Just as the son in Three Tall Women was estranged from his mother for 20 years because she couldn't accept his homosexuality, Edward Albee was also estranged from his mother because of their conflicts about his being gay.

It appears that, even though they reconnected, they never talked about their conflicts, and he wasn't close to his mother.  In the play, A states that he came back to see her, but he never returned to see his father or to attend his father's funeral.

The protagonist's self states from different stages in her life communicate with each other and each provides a unique perspective of A from different points of view in her life.  She is reviewing her life from her youth, middle age and at the end of her life.

Mortality, one of the main themes of this thought-provoking play, is viewed from these different perspectives.

Being in the audience, you can't help think about your life at whatever stage you're in and how you're living your life.  You also become aware that life is short so, while there's still time to change, you can ask yourself how you want to live your 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 work with individual adults and couples.

My specialties include: 

• Trauma
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Relationship issues
• Career issues
• Bereavement and loss
• LGBT issues
• Substance abuse aftercare
• Major life changes

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.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

In my prior articles, Seeing Yourself as "Independent" vs. Feeling Shame For Feeling Like a Burden and Seeing Yourself as "Rational" vs. Feeling Shame For Not Being Able to Feel, I discussed how people often use pride-based defense mechanisms to ward off deeper problems.  Continuing with the theme of pride-based defense mechanisms, I'm focusing on the defense used by people who see themselves as loners vs. the deeper issue of feeling that they don't belong.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

Before I go on, I want to emphasize that the ability to be alone is an important psychological development, so I'm not saying that enjoying solitude is a problem (see my article: On Being Alone).

I am referring to people who defensively ward off deeper feelings of being an outsider or not belonging and who label themselves as a loner in order not to deal with those deeper, more problematic feelings that involve shame.

Of course, like most other things, being a loner is on a continuum, and different people who identify themselves as loners can mean different things.  There are loners who do have close relationships, but there is often a wariness of getting too close to people.

Like the people who take on the other pride-based identifications, like being "independent," which is really a pseudo-independence, and people who pride themselves as being "rational" when, in reality, they have problems with certain emotions that are unpleasant for them (like anger and sadness), people who take on the pride-based identification of being a loner often develop this defense mechanism at an early age as a way to cope with difficult family dynamics.

Most people, who use being a loner as a defense mechanism against feeling a chronic sense of not belonging, don't know that they're using a defense mechanism because the defense mechanism is unconscious.  In addition, they usually don't attend psychotherapy, except when other issues interfere with their lives or when they get an ultimatum from someone important in their life.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging
The following fictional vignette is typical of the dynamics which I've discussed above and illustrates how the pride-based identification of being a loner defends against a chronic sense of not belonging:

Ron
Ron, who was in his early 30s, came for a psychotherapy consultation after his mother moved away from New York City to live in Florida and he began to feel like "something was missing" from his life.  He never thought he would ever come for a psychotherapy consultation.  Although he wasn't convinced that psychotherapy would help him, he thought he would "give it a try" and he hoped to discover in therapy what might be missing for him.

Seeing Yourself as a Loner vs. Experiencing Yourself as Not Belonging

Ron told his  psychotherapist that he prided himself on being a loner.  Generally, he liked to spend time by himself, but when his mother lived in New York City, he liked to visit her every week or so to touch base with her.

When his psychotherapist asked Ron about his father and siblings, he said he was raised as an only child, and his father left the household when he was 12.  He had no contact with his father since that time.  Prior to that, he said, his father was emotionally and physically abusive with both his mother and him.  He recalled that when he was a young child of four or five, his father used to berate him and tell Ron that he wasn't his biological child.  He even threatened to put Ron in foster care.

When Ron was 12, he came home from school and found his father packing his things.  His last words to Ron were, "You're a loser and you're no son of mine," which was extremely painful for Ron.  

Later that day, he found out from his mother that the father told her he was moving in with his mistress of several years.  The father also told her that he had two younger sons with this woman, and that he planned to remain with them.  Until then, the father's mistress and his other children had been a secret (see my article: Toxic Family Secrets).

As a result, Ron grew up feeling inadequate.  As a child, he often wondered if he was really adopted and neither parent wanted to tell him.  He reasoned that this would explain why his father was so abusive towards him and told him that he wasn't his son.

But when he was older, his mother showed him his birth certificate which indicated that she and Ron's father were his birth parents.  But as a teenager, Ron continued to feel that he wasn't good enough because he believed that if he was good enough, his father would have stayed.  He never met his younger half-brothers, but he imagined that, unlike him, they were everything that his father wanted as sons.

He told his therapist that he considered himself to be a very spiritual person, and he would sometimes spend hours meditating or praying.  Aside from his mother, he identified God as being his primary emotional support.  He felt that God was always there, never abandoned him, and never let him down.

When he was in high school, he had very good grades, but he had some disciplinary problems for getting into fights.  He was evaluated by the school psychologist, who ruled out Asperger's or any other psychological disorders.  The school psychologist recommended that Ron's mother take him to see a child therapist to deal with the trauma related to the abuse, witnessing domestic violence and the father leaving the household, but his mother told Ron that she didn't think he needed therapy.  She didn't believe in therapy.  She was a religious woman, and she told Ron to pray instead.

Ron had a few buddies that he hung out with when he was in college, but he had little contact with them after college graduation, except for occasionally interactions on Facebook.  There were a few buddies that he hung out with occasionally to watch sports, but he didn't consider them to be close friends. These were people that Ron grew up with in his neighborhood.

There were two colleagues at work that he interacted with occasionally but, as a web designer who mostly worked from home, he tended to spend most of his work hours by himself, which suited him.

He had never been in a serious relationship.  Occasionally, he met women at online, but these relationships were mostly sexual and didn't last long.

Since his mother moved away, he began thinking that he might like to be in a relationship that was more than just sexual.  He was thinking that he might like the companionship, as long as the woman he was with gave him his "space" and didn't expect him to attend too many social gatherings.

By the end of the consultation, when Ron told the psychotherapist that he would like to come to therapy about once a month, she told him that psychotherapy sessions were usually weekly and, if he only came once a month, his progress would be very slow.  Reluctantly, Ron agreed to "try" weekly therapy sessions.

After hearing his family history, Ron's therapist recognized that Ron had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma that he was defending against.  She also sensed that, despite his saying that he prided himself on being a loner, he was deeply lonely and didn't realize it.  She knew she would have to wait until Ron was ready to broach these issues with him.

Initially, Ron was somewhat aloof with his psychotherapist.  He would talk about his attempts to date.  He said he was comfortable while the contact was online, but when he had to meet a date in person, he felt very self conscious and awkward.  Most of the time, he couldn't wait until the date was over.

But, recently, he met someone new that he really liked, a woman named Cathy, and he wanted to see her again.  He also sensed that she was interested in him.

From then on, Ron's therapy sessions were about how inadequate he felt as a man when he was around Cathy.  As a teenager, he always hoped that he would become an honest man, a man with integrity, and not an "abusive philanderer like my father."  But he also feared that he might grow up to be just like his father, which filled him with dread.

Since he met Cathy, he was surprised that he wanted to spend more time with her and that, beyond their sexual relationship, which was good, he enjoyed her company.

When she asked him to meet her friends at her best friend's birthday party, he felt hesitant because he didn't like hanging out with groups of people, but he knew it was important to Cathy, so he went.  He felt more like an observer than a participant at the party, but he also met a couple of people he thought were interesting.

In the meantime, Ron was feeling more comfortable in his weekly therapy sessions.  Over time, he allowed himself to develop a good working alliance with his psychotherapist, and he opened up more in therapy.

After Ron and Cathy were dating for almost a year, they were talking about moving in together.  Cathy initiated the discussion a few months before her apartment lease was up.  Ron knew this would be the next step in developing their relationship, but he felt deeply ambivalent about living with Cathy.

On the one hand, he would like spending more time with her.  But, on the other hand, he worried that she might not give him enough "space."  He also worried that, if she got to know him more intimately, she might get to know "the real me" and she might not like him (see my article: Overcoming the Fear That People Wont Like You If They Knew the "Real You").

This led back to the discussion about Ron feeling inadequate, and his psychotherapist recognized that Ron was now ready to talk about his earlier memories of feeling inadequate in his family.  So, after a few discussions about trauma therapy, his therapist recommended, and Ron agreed, that they use EMDR therapy to work on his unresolved childhood trauma, which was at the root of his current feelings of being inadequate (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy? and How Does EMDR Therapy Work: EMDR and the Brain).

During that time, Ron and Cathy began living together in his apartment.  Before they moved in, they talked about what they each needed from each other to make things work.

Ron explained to Cathy that he liked to spend some time alone because this was important to him.  Cathy said she also had hobbies that she liked to pursue, so she didn't mind if Ron had his alone time.  She also talked about how important it was to her to have open communication with Ron about how things were going as they began living together.  This made Ron feel uncomfortable because he had never had such an emotionally intimate romantic relationship before, but he agreed to try it.

As Ron worked on his unresolved childhood trauma in therapy, he began to realize how much shame he experienced as a child because he felt inadequate and like an outsider in his own family.  He realized that he never felt like he belonged anywhere--not at home, not at school or in college, not at work, and not with his buddies (see my article: Feeling Like an Outsider).

He recognized the only people he didn't feel like an outsider with was his mother, Cathy and his psychotherapist.  He began to see how it was related to his unresolved trauma.

Over time, Ron worked through his childhood trauma in therapy.  As he did, his interactions with others became more relaxed.  He still liked his alone time, but now he was able to actually enjoy being around people rather than just tolerating their company.

He realized that this was what had been missing from his life, before he came to therapy and before he began his relationship with Cathy, were meaningful relationships with people.

His fear that Cathy would get to know him better and not like him dissolved as their relationship deepened.  They were even talking about getting married.

Ron began remembering some good times with his father, despite the abuse and abandonment, and told his therapist that he was surprised that these memories were coming back to him.  She told him that EMDR therapy might have opened up these other memories that he suppressed after his father left the household.

Ron became curious about his father and, with much trepidation, Ron contacted him.  He was surprised that his father was happy to hear from him, and they agreed to meet each other for coffee to talk.  That meeting was the first of many where Ron and his father began reconciling their relationship.

Ron found out things he never knew about his father, including how his father was severely abused by his own father as a child.  His father apologized to him for the physical and emotional abuse and for leaving Ron when he was a child.  Ron wasn't sure that he would ever feel comfortable enough to meet his father's new wife, the woman that his father left his mother for when Ron was a child.  But he was willing to keep an open mind about it for the future.

Conclusion
Identifying as a loner is often a defense for people who are unconsciously warding off deeper feelings of feeling like they don't belong.

As I mentioned before, an ability to be alone and enjoy your own company is an important developmental step, and not everyone who enjoys solitude identifies as a loner or falls into this category.

For people who have the deeper issue of warding off shame for feeling inadequate, the defense mechanism of identifying themselves as loners suppresses these painful feelings.

Most of the time, people with this problem never come to therapy.  Those who do come to therapy often come because they feel something is missing in their lives or a spouse or boss tells them to get help because there are problems in their relationship or at work.

When people with these issues come to therapy, psychotherapists must wait until these clients form a solid therapeutic relationship with them before doing trauma therapy or they will risk alienating these clients and also risk these clients leaving therapy prematurely (see my article: When Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely).

There is usually unresolved trauma at the root of these problems, and talk therapy usually isn't enough to resolve the problem.  A more experiential trauma therapy, like EMDR, is more likely to help clients to resolve a traumatic history  (see my article: EMDR Therapy: When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

Getting Help in Therapy
There are some emotional problems are too complex to resolve on your own.  You need the help of a licensed mental health professional (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Finding the psychotherapist who is right for you might involve having consultations with a few therapists until you feel comfortable (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you have resolved the problems that have kept you stuck, you can free yourself from a traumatic history and 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 work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome unresolved problems.

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.

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

As I discussed in my prior article, people often use defense mechanisms as emotional survival strategies when dealing with the underlying issues that would be too overwhelming for them.  These defense mechanisms usually develop early in life when they helped with emotional survival.  But, as adults, these defense mechanisms get in the way of personal development as well as developing healthy relationships.  Suppressing emotions to be "rational," as opposed to feeling ashamed of not being able to feel emotions, is the defense mechanism that I will focus on in this article (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of So-Called "Negative" Emotions).

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

People who tend to be rational most of the time, to the exclusion of feeling their emotions, usually pride themselves on their rationality.  They don't realize that they're being rational in order to avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings because this defense mechanism is unconscious.

Sooner or later, being rational in order to avoid feelings causes problems, especially in relationships.  The other partner, who has access to all or most of his or her emotions, gets frustrated with the partner who uses being rational as a defense--while the partner who uses being rational feels comfortable with this and can't understand what all the fuss is about.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette:  Seeing Yourself as "Rational" vs. Feeling Shame for Not Being Able to Feel
The following clinical vignette, although fictional, represents many different real cases and illustrates what often happens when someone uses being rational rather than feeling ashamed for not being able to feel a full range of emotions:

Ed began psychotherapy after his girlfriend, Meg, complained that she was frustrated with him because he tended to be rational and logical rather than allowing himself to feel his emotions.  She told him that if he didn't get help, she would end the relationship because she felt alone and lonely when emotional issues came up.

A recent incident lead to Meg giving Ed an ultimatum: Meg had a miscarriage and she couldn't understand Ed's lack of emotion.  Both Ed and Meg wanted to have a baby for the last few years.  When she got pregnant, they were both happy.  Then, several weeks into the pregnancy, Meg had a miscarriage while she was at home, and Ed took her to the hospital.

When they got home later that night, Meg felt devastated.  She couldn't stop crying, and when she turned to Ed, she felt angry and frustrated that he was so unemotional.  She knew that Ed loved her and really wanted to have the baby, so she couldn't understand how he could be so emotionally detached.

When Meg confronted Ed about it, he told her that, while he understood that she was upset, he thought it didn't make sense for him to get emotional about it, "It won't change anything." He thought it would be best for him to stay calm and recognize that they could try again to have a baby.

Meg knew that Ed loved her.  But she also knew that when it came to dealing with emotions that he felt were unpleasant, he would ward off these feelings by being rational in a way that made her feel like she was alone.  She was so upset by his lack of emotional support about the miscarriage that she left for a few of weeks to stay with a friend.  She said she found it too upsetting to be around him.

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

Before she left, Ed pleaded with Meg to stay.  He tried to tell her that he loved her and he wanted to have a child.  He just couldn't understand how it would help to get upset about it.  But Meg left anyway and told him to get help in therapy.

As Ed sat in the psychotherapist's office, he told her that he didn't understand why Meg was so upset with him.  He didn't know why she didn't understand how much better it was in this situation to remain rational and not "lose my head" with emotion.  He felt badly that Meg thought he didn't care when, in fact, he really did care a lot.  He said that it was because he cared that he thought it was better to be rational than to be emotional.

As Ed and his psychotherapist explored his family history, he revealed that both of his parents prided themselves on being rational people.  They had each gone through traumatic experiences as children and they believed that they got through those difficult times by being rational and unemotional, which is what they taught Ed and his younger brother, Jack (see my article: Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma).

As he described his family history, his psychotherapist could see that Ed used being rational to ward off feelings that were difficult for him--like sadness and anger.  She understood that this was a long-standing problem for him, and he wouldn't respond well if she proceeded too quickly to explore the feelings that he was warding off.

His psychotherapist asked Ed to give her examples from his childhood when he remained rational under difficult circumstances.  He told her that one of his earliest memories was when he was five losing his beloved dog, who had been part of the family from before Ed was born.

He remembered crying when his parents told him that the dog died.  Then, both of his parents told him to dry his eyes and stop crying because crying wouldn't change anything.  His father told him that it was always better to remain rational and unemotional under these types of circumstances.  So, Ed stopped crying and dried his eyes.

As he reflected on this experience in his psychotherapist's office, he said he agreed with his parents and he thought they taught him a valuable lesson about remaining rational during difficult times.  He knew that when each of them escaped their country of origin as children with their parents, it helped them to remain rational and unemotional, and he was glad he learned this lesson at an early age.

He thought the same idea applied to Meg's miscarriage.  Rather than being upset about it, he thought, they should focus on the positive things in their lives and try to have a baby again (see my article: Are You Using Your Idea of "Positive Thinking" As a Form of Denial).

A few weeks later, Meg called Ed and told him that she decided to take a break from the relationship. She wanted time to think about what she really wanted, and she would get back to him.

Seeing Yourself as Being "Rational" vs. Experiencing Shame For Not Being Able to Feel

By the time Ed came to his next psychotherapy session, he said he felt like he was "going crazy."  Ever since he received the call from Meg, he felt completely overwhelmed.  He couldn't sleep, eat or concentrate at work.

He kept trying to tell him that being upset wouldn't help him, but it made no difference--he continued to feel upset.  This made no sense to him at all, which is why he felt like he was "going crazy." He said he felt like he desperately needed help or "I'll lose my mind."

Ed's psychotherapist understood that Ed's usual defense mechanism of being rational wasn't working for him now.  In the past, he was able to suppress his feelings by being rational, but his feelings for Meg were so strong that his defense mechanism wasn't working.  Since Ed wasn't accustomed to dealing with strong unpleasant emotions, he felt like he was losing his mind.

His psychotherapist assured Ed that he wasn't losing his mind--he was having a normal reaction to the possible loss of his relationship.  Then, sensing that he was now open because he was in an emotional crisis, she provided him with psychoeducation about defense mechanisms (see my article: How a Crisis Open You Up to Positive Changes).

His psychotherapist normalized Ed's reaction to Meg wanting to take time away and helped him to deal with his emotions.  Over time, Ed discovered in therapy how he learned to suppress uncomfortable emotions by using the defense mechanism of being rational.

He also learned that deep down he felt ashamed for not being able to feel all of his emotions, and being rational suppressed his shame.  In addition, he learned that it was healthier for him to be able to experience the full range of all his emotions rather than suppressing them.

His psychotherapist helped Ed to strengthen his tolerance for experiencing the emotions that he had been avoiding (see my article: Expanding Your Window of Tolerance in Psychotherapy).

Over time, he became more comfortable with unpleasant emotions like sadness, grief, and anger, and he also dealt with the losses that he never dealt with as a child.  Although he had to get accustomed to  feeling the full range of his emotions, he told his psychotherapist that he felt relieved to experience these emotions rather than suppress them.

After several months, Meg came back and they dealt with the loss related to the miscarriage together.  Although he was relieved to feel all his emotions, there were still times when Ed thought it was easier, in some ways, not to deal with the unpleasant emotions.  But he also knew that it was healthier for him to experience all of his feelings.

Conclusion
Just like any other defense mechanism, being rational without dealing with uncomfortable emotions, serves to ward off uncomfortable emotions. People who are adamant about being rational and logical, rather than experiencing their emotions, usually don't realize that they're defending against their emotions.

Most of the time, it's a defense mechanism that they learned at an early age, and they really believe that it's a healthy coping strategy.  But being rational and suppressing feelings doesn't work, as in the vignette above.

When a defense mechanism doesn't work, this can create an emotional crisis, which might enable the person in crisis to be more open to looking at his or her emotional survival strategy and to consider change.

With tact and sensitivity for a client's vulnerable state, a skilled psychotherapist can help a client to explore this emotional survival strategy and how s/he can change.

The psychotherapist can also help the client to gradually strengthen his or her window of tolerance to be able to experience emotions that are being defended against.

Getting Help in Therapy
Longstanding emotional survival strategies can be very difficult for you to change on your own (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If your emotional survival strategies aren't working for you, you owe it to yourself to get help in therapy.

Learning healthier coping strategies can help you to experience your full range of emotions so you can feel more alive.

Rather than struggling on your own, get help from 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).

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome trauma and develop healthy coping strategies so they could go on to live more fulfilling lives.

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

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

Masking Vulnerability and Shame By Pretending You Don't Need Anyone

As I have mentioned in prior articles, defense mechanisms are important in terms of keeping you from feeling overwhelmed, especially when you're a child and you're in a physically or emotionally abusive family situation.  

But when you become an adult, these same defense mechanisms get in the way of having access to a full range of emotions.  Aside from having negative consequences for your emotional development, your relationships suffer as well.  

One common defense mechanism is developing a pride-based identification to cover up shame.  For instance, a child who was neglected or abused grows into an adult who sees himself as being "independent" (not needing anyone) as opposed to dealing his underlying emotions--experiencing shame and hurt for feeling like a burden to his family (see my article:  Emotional Survival Strategies That No Longer Work For You: "I Don't Need Anyone").

Masking Vulnerability and Shame

It's understandable why a child, who has to fend for himself at a young age, would rather see himself as being independent and not needing anyone else.

But this is really a pseudo-independence because children can never really be independent in terms of their emotional and physical needs. Children who are neglected or abused might have no other choice, if they want to survive, than to try to take care of their own needs as best as they can at a great cost to their psychological development and, possibly, their physical development.

It would be too overwhelming for a young child, who has to take care of his own needs, to also try to come to terms with why his parents aren't taking care of him.  So, instead of dealing with the emotional pain involved with that, they develop defense mechanisms that prevent them from feeling overwhelmed, including pride-based identifications ("I'm independent so I don't need anyone") and emotional numbing (see my article: What Happens When You Numb Yourself to Your Traumatic Past?).

The defense mechanism of believing yourself to be independent, which excludes others, masks a deeper sense that the parents didn't take care of the child.  Emotional numbing can numb or mute most feelings.  By shutting off the hurt and anger, you also shut off emotions of joy and happiness.

In addition, you could grow up to feel that you can't trust anyone, so you have to take care of all your needs on your own.  This has negative repercussions for developing healthy relationships.  Some people, who grow up feeling pseudo-independent, unconsciously choose relationships where they have to take care of the other person.  Other people decide to remain alone.

Whether you choose people who you have to take care of and who will never meet your needs or you choose to remain alone, sadly, you can live your entire life trying to maintain the myth that you don't need others in order to avoid dealing with your traumatic history.

When people who believe themselves to be independent, without needing others, come to therapy, they often say they come for other reasons.  Their defense mechanism of feeling pseudo-independent is so firmly established that they don't see it or how it affects their lives.

A skilled psychotherapist usually won't address this dynamic directly at the start of therapy because, in most cases, it would be too emotionally threatening to a client who uses this defense mechanism if the therapist addresses it prematurely.  The therapist needs to assess when the client would be ready to deal with these issues.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: Seeing Yourself as Independent vs. Feeling Shame For Feeling Like a Burden
The following fictional clinical vignette is based on many different cases and illustrates the issues outlined above and how psychotherapy can help:

Tom, who was in his early 30s, began psychotherapy reluctantly because he was having problems at work.  His director praised Tom's work, but he also told Tom that he needed to learn to be a team player.

Specifically, his director referred to a recent project where the tasks for the project were divided among Tom and four other employees, but Tom took on the whole project and completed it himself by working late nights and weekends.  The director reiterated what a great job Tom did, but he told him that Tom's coworkers felt they missed an opportunity to shine on this project.  In addition, they complained that Tom was aloof and avoided interacting with them.  As a result, the director told Tom that he wanted him to develop better relationships with his team and learn to be a part of the team rather than taking on the whole project.

Tom told his psychotherapist that there would be a big new project coming up in a few months where everyone on Tom's team, including Tom, would be assigned a role, and his director expected Tom to interact well with his teammates while he sticks to his assigned role.

Tom told his psychotherapist that he preferred to work alone, even if it meant that he worked many hours.  But his director made himself clear, and Tom didn't want to appear uncooperative or lose his job.  He needed to learn how to, at least, appear like a team player, but he knew this would be stressful for him, which is what brought him to therapy.

He said that he never thought he would seek help in therapy because, from the time he was a young child, he prided himself on being "independent" and "never needed anyone."  Similar to when he was a child, as an adult, he spent most of his time alone, and he preferred it that way.

When his psychotherapist asked Tom to describe his childhood, Tom wasn't sure where to start.  He folded his arms defensively, and asked his therapist what she wanted to know.  Then, he added that he couldn't see how his childhood was relevant to his current problem.

Not wanting to alienate Tom, his psychotherapist asked Tom a few brief questions about his childhood and assumed that, over time, she would find out more when he was ready.  Tom responded to his therapist's questions by saying, "I had a great childhood.  There were no problems in my childhood.  My parents did the best they could."

Over time, Tom divulged more details about his childhood.  He mentioned that he was an only child.  He said his parents were often out of the house much of the time.  His father was a musician who was frequently at gigs at night.  After the gigs, his father and band mates would go out to drink ("My father had a little bit of a drinking problem.  It wasn't really that bad"). He said his mother worked three jobs to make ends meet because his father's gigs didn't bring in much money.   As a result, Tom was mostly alone, so he learned to fend for himself at a young age, which he said gave him a great sense of pride.

His psychotherapist could see that Tom was a neglected child, who developed the defense mechanism of seeing himself as "independent" rather than neglected and he had an avoidant attachment style.  She could also tell that Tom was nowhere near being ready to deal with this, so she didn't want to address it prematurely.

After Tom talked about his parents, he looked uncomfortable and, even though she said nothing, he accused the psychotherapist of trying to say that he had "bad parents."  He told her that he had "the best parents in the world" and wouldn't allow anyone to say that they weren't (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Relationship With Your Psychotherapist).

In response, his psychotherapist recognized that Tom was using projection as a defense mechanism--projecting his own unconscious and disowned feelings about his parents onto her. She tactfully pointed out to Tom that she had not said a word about his parents and wondered what was going on.

Tom seemed to recover himself and apologized.  He said one of the reasons why he avoided coming to therapy in the past was that he assumed that "all psychotherapists" blamed clients' parents, and he had strong feelings about anyone blaming his parents, "I won't allow anyone to say anything negative about my parents."

In the meantime, Tom was dealing with his situation at work by "pretending" to like his coworkers and to feel like he was part of the team.  He said he only did it to save his job, but he felt like "a phony,"which he hated.   At the same time, he admitted that, as he got to know his teammates better, he was starting to like them a little.

As previously mentioned, in his personal life, Tom spent most of his time alone.  Occasionally, he visited his parents to help them with chores and also to help them financially.  His parents were both retired now and dealing with medical problems.

His mother had arthritis so bad that there were days when she was in severe pain.  His father developed liver problems several years before, and his doctor convinced the father that he had to stop drinking.  Although they continued to live together, his parents lived parallel lives with their own friends.  Tom also suspected that his father was having an extramarital affair, but Tom used the defense mechanism of minimization by saying, "Well, he's unhappy, so I don't blame him."

Tom told his psychotherapist that he dated casually from time to time, but he had no real interest in being in a relationship.  When he wasn't helping his parents, he spent most of his time watching TV or playing video games alone.

It took several months for Tom to begin to trust his psychotherapist and to develop a therapeutic alliance with her.  He focused mostly on his work and avoided talking about his personal life.

One day, Tom came in and told his therapist that he watched a TV program where a sad young boy was left at home alone most of the time, and this boy would cry a lot when he was alone.  Tom said that while he was watching the program, he realized that he was crying too, but he didn't know why, "It was only a TV program.  I don't know why it would make me sad.  I know it's not real."

He said, even as he sat in his therapist's office now, he felt like crying about the TV program, and he felt silly about this.  In response, his therapist asked Tom if he would be willing to explore this further.  Tom said that, on the one hand, he felt silly wasting his time in therapy talking about a TV program.  But, he said, on the other hand, he realized that he was deeply affected by this program.

As they explored Tom's reaction to the TV program, Tom told his therapist that he felt sorry for the young boy because his parents left him alone and he was lonely and scared.  As he continued to talk about his emotional reaction to the young boy, suddenly he stopped, "Oh my God!  That boy was me!"

With this realization, Tom burst into tears.  He sobbed for a few minutes, and afterwards, when he recovered, he said he now understood why he felt so sad for the boy in the TV program.  He said this boy's story was also his story.

This sudden realization helped Tom to open up in his therapy.  Over the next few months, Tom opened up more about how sad and lonely he felt as a young boy.  Although he was careful not to blame his parents, he now understood how sad and scary it was for him to be alone so much when he was a child.

A big part of his therapy was mourning what he needed but didn't get as a child.  Waves of grief washed over Tom each time.  Afterwards, he said he felt relieved to allow himself to feel his sadness and, eventually, his anger too, at being left alone.

Another part of his therapy was coming to terms with having seen himself for so many years as being "independent," which masked his sadness and loneliness for feeling like he was a burden to his parents when he was younger.

Tom also realized that, on some level, he still felt like people would see him as a burden, and this was why he tended to remain alone.  He assumed that he was an unlovable person that no one would want.  But instead of allowing himself to feel these feelings, before he got to this point in his therapy, he defended against these feelings by having a general disdain for others (see my article: Overcoming the Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Masking Vulnerability and Shame 

Over time, as Tom continued to work on these issues in therapy, he allowed himself to form better working relationships at work.  He also took risks in his personal life to develop friendships and a romantic relationship.

Conclusion
Children who are physically abused or neglected often develop defense mechanisms to ward off the overwhelming sadness and anger they feel.  As a child, these defense mechanisms work to ward off overwhelming feelings at a time when children don't have anyone to help them to deal with the feelings.

A common defense mechanism is for these children is a pride-based defense of seeing themselves as "independent" rather than face the fact that they are in over their heads trying to take care of themselves.  This defense, which is unconscious, is much easier for them than the underlying shame they really feel for feeling like a burden to their parents.

When these children become adults, they continue to use this defense mechanism to avoid their underlying feelings.  They often have an avoidant attachment style that makes it difficult for them to form relationships with others.  But, in reality, what they perceive as "independence" is really a pseudo-independence that masks shame, hurt and anger.

Sadly, many people live their whole lives warding off their shame, anger and sadness to preserve their false sense of independence and a much-needed false image of "a great childhood."

Often, adults with a false sense of independence, due to childhood neglect or abuse, come to therapy for other reasons.  They might be having problems with relationships at work or in their personal lives.  They might think they have "communication problems."  But the reality is that the problems are much deeper, and it often takes time in therapy for clients to feel safe enough to explore these issues.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you think you might have developed defense mechanisms in childhood that are causing you problems as an adult, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you in a way that feels safe for you to deal with these issues (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Many psychotherapy clients say that, once they have dealt with these underlying issues, they feel so much more alive and energized because they're no longer using so much energy to ward off emotions that are difficult for them.

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help so you can live a more authentic and meaningful 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 work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many 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.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt: Part 2

In my prior article, Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt - Part 1, I discussed how anger is part of healthy aggression and starts at birth.  I also discussed how problems develop when healthy aggression is short circuited at a young age and continues into adulthood.  In this article, Part 2 of this topic, I'm providing a fictional clinical vignette to illustrate those issues.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt 

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt
Beth began attending psychotherapy after she was passed over for a promotion that she felt sure she was going to get but didn't.  Instead, a colleague, Karen, who used Beth's ideas and presented them to their director as if these ideas were her own, got the promotion that Beth wanted so much.

Beth told her psychotherapist that other colleagues, who knew that Karen took Beth's ideas, told Beth that she should speak with her director and let him know what happened.  But Beth felt too uncomfortable doing that.  She didn't want to "make waves" at the office, so she remained silent.

Beth also told her therapist that other colleagues, who were on the same level as Beth, often dumped projects they didn't want onto Beth to free themselves up for more interesting projects--projects that Beth would like to work on but couldn't because she was weighed down with the less interesting projects.  Friendly colleagues urged her to speak up, but Beth said she was too uncomfortable to assert herself, so she did nothing.

She had been with her company for a little over a year, and she was aware that she was getting a reputation for being a doormat--someone that certain colleagues could take advantage of because they knew she wouldn't stand up for herself.

She was also aware that if she continued to allow others to take advantage of her, her situation at work would only get worse.  She told her psychotherapist that she didn't know how to change these situations, but she wanted to learn how to do it.

As Beth and her psychotherapist explored her family history, Beth revealed that she was raised by a single mother who controlled almost every aspect of Beth's life until Beth moved out five years ago when she turned 25.  Even now that she was living on her own, Beth said, her mother still tried to control certain areas of Beth's life.

She told her therapist that when she told her mother that she was moving out five years ago, her mother was upset.  Her mother told her that she could save so much more money if she continued to live at home.  Beth told her that she wanted to have her own place.  Her mother knew there was nothing she could to stop Beth, but she told Beth, "Okay, go ahead and move out, but you might not find me here one day.  I'm not going to live forever, you know."

Beth was alarmed to hear her mother say this.  She also felt ashamed of her desire to be on her own and guilty for hurting her mother.  This made moving out so much more difficult, but Beth knew it was time to be on her own.  She didn't know how she did it, but she found the courage to move out, even though she felt ashamed of her need to do this and guilty for hurting her mother.

As she recalled her childhood, she told her psychotherapist that she remembered so many other memories of her mother being very uncomfortable when Beth tried to be more independent--from the time she was a young girl wanting to pick out her own clothes to wear to her mother's dismay when Beth told her that she wanted to learn to drive when she was 17.

She told her therapist that her close friends from adolescence, who remained her close friends now, always urged her to stand up to her mother, but Beth felt too guilty to confront her mother.  She was so aware that as single mother, her mother sacrificed a lot for her.  She felt it would be a form of betrayal if she confronted her mother, and she knew her mother would see it that way too.

And, yet, there was another part of her that wanted to be able to stand up to her mother so she wouldn't feel so dominated by her mother.  She would often imagine herself telling her mother that she needed to feel more independent, especially now that she was 30.  But whenever she imagined speaking to her mother about this, she could see how hurt and disappointed her mother looked, and she felt she couldn't risk hurting her mother.  So, her dilemma remained (see my article: Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships).

Beth's psychotherapist listened empathically and understood that Beth was very ambivalent about what to do.  On the one hand, Beth wanted to feel more autonomous and in control of her life.  But on the other hand, Beth worried that she would hurt her mother.  She felt like she had to either choose to honor her own needs or honor her mother's needs, and she didn't know what to do.

Beth had a lot of insight into her problems, even before she came to therapy.  She knew that her problems with asserting herself were related to her lifelong avoidance of confrontations which were rooted in her relationship with her mother.  She knew, on some level, that she was suppressing her anger, but she couldn't feel it.  She was insightful, but she just didn't know how to make changes.

Listening to Beth, her psychotherapist recognized that there were times when Beth asserted herself, like when she moved out of her mother's place.  So she explained to Beth that everyone is made up of different, and sometimes contradictory, aspects of themselves.  And, her therapist explained, Beth had a part of her that knew how to assert herself--she just didn't know how to access this part of herself (see my articles: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation and Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are).

Using a combination of clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing, Beth's therapist helped Beth to go back into the memories of the times when she was able to assert herself with her mother.  At the same time that her psychotherapist helped Beth to access that assertive part of herself, she also helped Beth to manage the guilt and shame that also came up.

Over time, Beth was able to access this more assertive part of herself on her own.  As Beth got more comfortable calling on this more assertive part of herself, her psychotherapist recommended that she practice using this in ways that didn't feel too difficult.  She taught Beth how to put her shame and guilt aside in order to assert herself in small ways at work.

Then, when Beth was more comfortable, her psychotherapist urged her to be more assertive in other more complicated situations at work--like when her colleague tried to use more of Beth's ideas and say that they were hers.  This was more challenging for Beth, but she did it anyway and felt good about herself afterwards.

Over time, Beth was also getting more comfortable and confident with presenting her ideas to her director, especially after she received very positive feedback from the director.

The most challenging ordeal was asserting herself with her mother, who would often come over to Beth's apartment unannounced.  One day, Beth's mother came over when Beth was having dinner with a man she started dating.  Her first inclination was to let her mother in, but then she realized that this would be awkward and it would ruin her date with this man.

So, gathering her courage, she told her mother that she had come at a bad time and she would call her tomorrow.  Her mother, who refused to accept that Beth was an adult--much less as a sexual being, got angry and she left abruptly.  After her mother left, Beth calmed herself and she went back to be with her date.

During her next psychotherapy session, Beth told her therapist that she was able to set a boundary with her mother, but she felt very guilty and ashamed.  She said that she almost called her mother the next day to apologize, but when she thought about how her therapist would respond to this, she decided not to do it (see my article: How Clients Internalize Their Experience of Their Psychotherapist).

Beth's psychotherapist understood that there was still much unfinished business from Beth's early childhood, so she recommended that they use EMDR Therapy to work on Beth's unresolved trauma (see my articles: How EMDR Works: EMDR and the Brain and What is Adjunctive EMDR Therapy?).

Several months later, Beth was able to work through her childhood trauma with EMDR therapy.  She felt a lot of compassion for her mother, but she no longer felt shame for having her own needs or guilt for asserting herself with her mother.

She also continued to assert herself at work, and she was promoted a year later into a senior position with a substantial raise.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

Most important of all, Beth no longer feared her anger.  She understood that her anger and its related healthy aggression could be used to mobilize herself to be assertive (see my article: Using Anger to Mobilize Yourself to Make Positive Changes in Your Life).

Conclusion
Fear of anger is often coupled with shame and guilt, and these problems are often rooted in early childhood when parents don't allow children to use their healthy aggression to be more autonomous in an age-appropriate way.

Without help, these problems continue into adulthood and usually have a negative impact on your career and personal life.

No matter what kinds of problems you might be having, like everyone else, in order to survive, you have positive internal resources, including various aspects of yourself that have helped you throughout your life.  You might not be aware of these aspects or, if you are, you might not know how to access them on your own to use them now.

Getting Help in Therapy
A psychotherapist who uses clinical hypnosis and a mind-body oriented modality, like Somatic Experiencing, can help you to access the positive aspects of yourself so you can overcome your problems(see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

In addition, EMDR therapy can help you to overcome unresolved trauma from the past that keeps you stuck now.

Rather than struggling on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional so you can overcome your history and live 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).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome problems that keep them from maximizing their potential.

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

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

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt - Part 1

In a prior article about fear of anger, Overcoming Fear of Anger, I began a discussion about how this fear is usually rooted in childhood where parents were intolerant of expressions of healthy aggression.  In this article, I'll expand on this topic (also see my articles: Anger as a Secondary Emotion, Using Your Anger to Mobilize Yourself to Make Positive Changes in Your Life, and Healing Shame in Psychotherapy).

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

What is Healthy Aggression and How Does It Relate to the Separation-Individuation Process?
Healthy anger is a form of healthy aggression, so before addressing fear of anger, I think it would be helpful to define healthy aggression because this concept is often misunderstood.

Healthy aggression begins on the day you're born (possibly, even before).  Similar to chicks who experience the impetus to leave the egg, healthy aggression is what also causes the infant to leave the womb.  As a child, healthy aggression is what enables a young child to want to feed herself and, later on, learn to tie her own shoes.

Throughout child development, healthy aggression helps a child to want to learn to walk, learn to say "No!," get dressed on his own, and go through a healthy separation-individuation process with his parents.

At each stage, as the child develops, he learns that he is a separate individual from his parents and that she can take age-appropriate steps to make decisions and act more independent.  For a child of three or four who is with parents who allow the separation-individuation process, this might involve making decisions about what she will wear.  This might mean that the child chooses to wear a sweatshirt with a ballet tutu with mismatched patterns.

Even if the parents wouldn't have chosen this combination of clothing for the child, they know that it's important for the child to start making some independent decisions for herself in this way.  Over time, this will help the child to have confidence to make other decisions for herself as time goes by--rather than the parents insisting that they make all of the child's decisions.

The Negative Impact of Healthy Aggression Getting Short Circuited
What if, instead of the parents allowing the child to make her own decisions, they intrude on this process from the time the child is young through adulthood?

If parents have difficulty allowing their child to exercise healthy aggression from a young age, this has negative consequences for the child in terms of psychological development.

For instance, when a newborn wants to get his parents' attention, he will cry--a form of healthy aggression.  If the parents don't come to attend to the baby's needs, he will get even angrier and cry even louder until he works himself into a rage.  If the parents still don't come, he will exhaust himself and, with enough experiences like this, he will eventually learn that to stop crying to get his parents' attention.  He will go into a dissociative state as a survival strategy.

Fear of Anger Often Begins at a Young Age

Even at this young age, an infant learns to adapt to his parents' needs in order to survive.  Under those circumstances, dissociation is adaptive is an instinctual survival strategy so he does not alienate the parents.  But this adaptation has serious negative consequences later on because the child is learning that he has to put his parents' needs before his own.  He will also probably grow up to be an adult who will continue to dissociate and not know his own needs.

Another example is if a young child has the urge to feed himself, when his parent tries to feed him, he might say, "No, I do it!"  If he has never done it before, of course, he's going to make a mess, but this is part of the way he learns.  If a parent can't tolerate seeing the mess, she might interfere with the child's healthy urge to learn to do it himself and insist that she continue to feed him.

Since this child's urge to feed himself is a natural part of developing, this child and parent will probably have a power struggle on their hands with the child insisting that he wants to feed himself and getting angry when the parent insists that she will do it.  In fact, it's probably the first of many power struggles if the parent doesn't realize that this is an important part of the child's development.

But what's going on here?  Why wouldn't a parent allow her child to feed himself (or choose his clothes or tie his shoes later on)?  When asked, the parent might say that she doesn't like the child to make a mess or she can do it faster or more easily, but if someone continued to explore the issue beyond the surface, what probably would come to the surface is that the parent has a fear of allowing the child to grow developmentally and become more independent.

This parent's fear is probably related to her own early family history and fear of eventually being "abandoned" by the child.  Even when a parent knows objectively that children do grow physically and psychologically and that this is normal developmentally, on an emotional level, it can be difficult to accept, especially if a parent has emotional issues that she hasn't worked out for herself.

A parent might see this reluctance to allow the child to grow and separate in age-appropriate ways as her being "protective."  And, while there might be an element of this, it usually has more to do with the parent's own fear of allowing the child to be more independent.

This can go on through the stages of child development so that the child learns that separating and becoming his own person is "bad."  In these kinds of situations, most children learn to sacrifice their own developmental needs in order to maintain an emotional tie with his parents (see my article: Is Fear of Being a "Bad Person" Keeping You From Asserting Yourself?).

Often, in an unspoken way, the message for this child has been all along that meeting his parents' needs is more important than meeting his own needs.  In effect, he learns that if he will maintain a less conflictual relationship with his parents if he ignores his needs.  In this case, healthy aggression is perceived as "bad" because it threatens the bond with the parents.

Healthy aggression, including anger, becomes coupled with fear, shame and guilt:  fear of losing his parents, shame for having his own needs, and guilt for wanting something that is different from his parents.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

Instead of learning over the course of his psychological development that there is such a thing as healthy anger, the child learns that all anger is "bad" and he shouldn't feel it.  As a result, he will have an unhealthy relationship to his own anger.  Either he will learn to dissociate his feelings of anger, deny that he ever feels angry or project his anger onto someone else ("I'm not the one who's angry.  You're the one who's angry").

So, for instance, the child who isn't allowed to engage in healthy aggression (or healthy anger) and who grows up to be an adult that has a negative view of anger won't realize that he can use healthy anger to assert himself or to set healthy boundaries with others.

Instead, this individual develops a fear of anger, which includes shame and guilt.

In my next article, I'll provide a fictional clinical vignette to illustrate these points and how psychotherapy can help.

Conclusion
Fear of anger (or fear of healthy aggression) usually begins at a young age.

If parents, who have their own unresolved emotional issues, cannot tolerate the child's healthy aggression, the child will often grow up fearing his own healthy aggression (or fearing anger) and feeling ashamed and guilty for having his own needs.

Fear, shame and guilt related to anger often results in a person splitting off his awareness of his anger, which can be done through various defense mechanisms.  Also, it often results in the person being afraid to assert himself or set healthy boundaries with others.

Getting Help in Therapy
Fear of anger, which is coupled with shame and guilt, is a common problem for many people, especially women, who are raised to believe that being angry is "bad."

If you're struggling with your own fear of anger or an inability to know your own emotional needs or an inability to assert yourself, you could benefit from psychotherapy.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to understand and accept your anger and learn to assert yourself in a healthy way.

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.

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.