Overcoming Your Fear of Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Sadness

Many people have a fear of allowing themselves to feel their sadness.  Their fear is if they allow themselves to feel sadness or grief that they will drown in it, so they use various defense mechanisms to avoid feeling sadness or grief, which prolongs their discomfort (see my articles: Grief in Waiting, Coping With Grief, Discovering that Sadness is Hidden Underneath Your Anger, and Allowing Yourself to Experience Your Emotions in a Healthy Way).

Overcoming Your Fear of Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Sadness

Usually people who fear feeling sadness or other feelings that cause them discomfort had experiences as young children where left alone with their emotions, so they were forced to soothe themselves with the limited capacities available to them as children (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of So-Called "Negative Emotions").

Sometimes, this is related to experiences of childhood abuse and/or neglect where one or both parents were either emotionally unavailable to soothe them or where the parents were the perpetrators of the children's emotional distress (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

In other cases, the parents weren't dealing with their own emotional discomfort and, as a result, they didn't know how to soothe themselves or their children.  Often, this becomes an intergenerational pattern unless people get help in therapy to cope with their fears of experiencing uncomfortable feelings (see my article: Intergenerational Family Dynamics).

People who fear dealing with sadness or other emotions that are uncomfortable for them usually don't seek out help in psychotherapy for the same reason why they don't allow themselves to feel their full range of their feelings--fear of being overwhelmed by their emotions.  Instead, they might keep themselves distracted and "busy" to ward off uncomfortable emotions (see my article: Are You Constantly "Keeping Busy" to Avoid Uncomfortable Feelings?).

The various forms of trauma therapy, including Somatic Experiencing and other experiential forms of psychotherapy, can be helpful to these clients because the work is titrated to the needs of the client after the psychotherapist assesses the client's ability to tolerate emotions that are uncomfortable to him or to her (see my article: Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Overcoming the Fear of Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Sadness
The following fictional vignette illustrates how a trauma therapy, like Somatic Experiencing, can help a client to gradually develop the capacity to tolerate sadness so that the problem can be worked through and resolved:

Gene
Gene decided to begin psychotherapy after his medical doctor ruled out any medical cause for his headaches.  Since all tests were negative with regard to a physical cause to his problems, his doctor explained the mind-body connection and how psychological problems can create physical symptoms if these psychological problems are not dealt with and resolved.  The doctor recommended that Gene attend psychotherapy to deal with the underlying emotional reasons for the headaches.

Gene was reluctant to attend psychotherapy, but he also didn't want to continue to have headaches or develop other physical ailments, so he contacted a psychotherapist for a consultation.  During the consultation, Gene told the psychotherapist, "I don't believe in psychotherapy, but my doctor recommended that I begin therapy, so I'm willing to try it."

When his psychotherapist asked Gene about his family history, Gene, who was in his late 30s, said he didn't have clear memories of his childhood.  He provided basic information that he was the oldest of three children and grew up with both his parents in New York City.

He said he remembered that when he was a child, he spent most of his time alone because his parents were preoccupied with their own lives.  He also mentioned that he was not close to his parents or his young brother and sister.  They all lived in the same household, but they were each living a separate life (see my article: Disengaged Families).

With regard to his current relationship with his family, he only saw them a couple of times a year on holidays when Gene and his siblings visited his parents, who now lived in Florida.  He said that family relationships were strained, and he was always glad when he was on his way back to New York.

Gene told his therapist that he had been in one romantic relationship when he was in his late 20s.  He said it ended after a year because his then-girlfriend told him that she didn't feel he was emotionally available to her.  He said that, after the initial stage of passion and excitement in the relationship, he didn't want as much emotional intimacy as his girlfriend did.  He said, vaguely, that he thought they just "grew apart," but he didn't really understand what she meant when she said he was emotionally unavailable.

He also said that, although he dated "here and there," he didn't especially miss being in a relationship because he thought a relationship would demand more from him than he could handle.  He would see friends occasionally, but he spent most of his time alone, which is what he preferred.  Overall, he considered himself to be "a loner" (see my article: Seeing Yourself as a "Loner" vs. Experiencing the Shame of Feeling That You Don't Belong).

As his psychotherapist listened to Gene talk about himself, she could see how tense and uncomfortable he was feeling.  Towards the end of the consultation, she asked him how it was for him to talk about himself and history.  Gene thought about it for a moment, and then he said he wasn't sure how he felt about it but, in general, he never felt comfortable talking about himself.

She explained to Gene that she tended to work experientially and she developed treatment plans in collaboration with each client depending upon their needs.  She also told him that she worked in a way that respected each client's capacity to tolerate dealing the emotions that came up regarding his or her presenting problem.  Then, she provided Gene with basic psychoeducation about experiential psychotherapy (see my article: Why Experiential Psychotherapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone).

His psychotherapist could tell that Gene was cutting off emotions that were uncomfortable for him and that he probably spent a lot of his childhood using the defense mechanism of dissociation in order to deal with his aloneness and lack of emotional support, which is why he had so few memories from childhood.

When Gene came to his next psychotherapy session, he asked his therapist what he needed to do to "fix things" so he didn't continue to get headaches.  His psychotherapist told him that she would need to get to know him better to assess the problem, and he would need to see if he felt comfortable enough with her to do the work.  She explained that the therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client takes a while to build, and there would need to be a therapeutic alliance before they did any in depth psychological work.

In other words, there was no "quick fix" for his problems (see my article: Beyond the "Band Aid" Approach to Psychotherapy).

Gene was displeased with this answer.  He wasn't accustomed to the idea of an emotional process and that there would be a process in therapy where he and his psychotherapist would need to develop a relationship.  He thought it would be similar to going to the doctor where he would receive either medication or a shot to deal with his problems.

So, his psychotherapist provided him with more information about the psychotherapy process and how, if there was a good fit between the client and the psychotherapist, the client would learn to trust the therapist over time.  In the meantime, they could continue to explore the timing of his headaches and if these headaches coincided with something that was going on in his life.

At first, Gene said that he didn't see the connection between his headaches and anything that was going on his life.  So, his therapist asked him if he remembered what was going on when his headaches started.

Initially, Gene said he didn't remember anything in particular.  But then, he remembered that his headaches started after his maternal uncle died last year, but he didn't see the connection between his uncle's death and his headaches.  When his therapist asked Gene how he felt about the loss of his maternal uncle, Gene was confused by this question.  So, she asked him specifically how he grieved for the loss.

Gene still didn't understand what his therapist meant by "grieved."  He said he wasn't aware that he did anything in particular other than going to the funeral and paying his respects to his aunt and cousins, which was something that was "expected" of him.  He said he wasn't aware that there was anything more to do about his uncle's death.

His psychotherapist provided Gene with psychoeducation about the rituals that many people perform in order to grieve this kind of loss, but Gene still didn't understand.  He said that, although he cared for his uncle and they were close at times when he was a child, he went to the funeral out of sense of obligation to his aunt and cousins.

As they explored Gene's reaction to his uncle's death, it became apparent to his psychotherapist that Gene was defending himself against his uncomfortable feelings about the loss.  As she watched Gene fold his arms across his chest and look away with barely any eye contact, she could see that he was defending against feeling his sadness.

At one point, as he was talking about the loss of his uncle, Gene became irritated and told the psychotherapist that he didn't see how talking about his uncle's death was going to help him to get over his headaches.  He thought this was a waste of time.

His psychotherapist asked Gene what he was experiencing in that moment, and he said he was feeling annoyed.  Then, she asked him if it would be tolerable for him to stay with that feeling for a moment to see what happened next.  Gene didn't see how this would be helpful, but he agreed to try it.

After a minute, Gene said he was surprised that, as he focused on his feeling, he felt his annoyance starting to dissipate.  His therapist explained to Gene that, often when a person focuses on an emotion, it changes because emotions tend to come and go.

She also explained that each person has a particular capacity to deal with uncomfortable emotions.  She called it their "window of tolerance" (see my article: Expanding Your Window of Tolerance in Psychotherapy So You Can Overcome Emotional Problems).

As they continued to work together, Gene was beginning to discover that he had a narrow window of tolerance, which was why it was so difficult for him to relate to emotions that made him feel uncomfortable, especially sadness.

Over time, Gene also discovered that he was warding off much of his sadness for his uncle's death because he was afraid that he would drown in his sadness if he allowed himself to feel it.  Using Somatic Experiencing, his psychotherapist helped Gene to experience his sadness in a manageable way, rather than dwelling on it for a long period of time in therapy.

Gradually, Gene began to develop a greater capacity to tolerate sadness and he allowed himself to grieve in his psychotherapy sessions.  Having his psychotherapist there to help him with his sadness and grief was an experience that he had never known before because he grew up in an environment where he was alone with his feelings almost all of the time.

As Gene mourned the loss of his uncle, his headaches dissipated.  He realized that when he was warding off his sadness in the past, he was placing himself and his body under a lot of stress, which is what was causing the headaches.

He also realized that, prior to allowing himself to feel his sadness and grief, he feared that his emotions would be overwhelming and he would drown in his emotions.  But, with the help of his psychotherapist and the titration of his emotional experiences so that they were manageable, he was able to cope with whatever came up for him emotionally.

As he opened up to experiencing his emotions more, Gene also realized that he was feeling lonely, but he had not allowed himself to experience that feeling until this point in his therapy.  The loneliness and his increased openness to other people allowed Gene to open up to connecting emotionally with women and the possibility of finding a relationship.

Conclusion
When people shut down emotions that are uncomfortable for them (whether it's sadness, anger or any other emotion), they usually don't realize that this is what they're doing because they're often out of touch with their emotions in general.

Fear of experiencing uncomfortable emotions usually begins at a young age when the child is overwhelmed by emotions that aren't mediated by his parents.  Since children need their parents to help them to cope with uncomfortable emotions, they don't develop the emotional capacity to deal with these emotions, and this continues into adulthood where they have a fear of uncomfortable emotions.

Getting Help in Therapy
Experiential therapy, like Somatic Experiencing, is usually much more helpful to overcome fear of allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable emotions.  The problem with not allowing yourself to experience uncomfortable emotions is that these emotions remain and continue to come up from time to time and get in the way of connecting emotionally with yourself and others.

It usually takes more and more effort to  avoid these feelings, which can develop into physical symptoms, like headaches, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), stomach problems, and other medical issues.

A skilled experiential psychotherapist will help the client to begin experiencing uncomfortable emotions in a manageable way a little at a time.  During that process, the therapist helps the client to develop and expand their window of tolerance so s/he has a greater capacity over time to experience and eventually let go of these emotions (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

If you think you might be avoiding emotions that are uncomfortable for you, you owe it to yourself to get help from a skilled psychotherapist who uses experiential psychotherapy.

Once you have expanded your window of tolerance for experiencing uncomfortable emotions, you might be surprised that you can experience and let go of these emotions over time.

With a greater capacity to feel a range of emotions, you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC experiential 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 expand their window of tolerance so they can overcome their fear of their emotions and live a fuller life.

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

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

How Do You Know If You're in an Unhealthy Relationship?

How do you know if you're in an unhealthy relationship?  Being objective about whether or not your relationship is healthy for you can be complicated when you're in love and sexually attracted to someone. 

You might overlook certain red flags in your relationship.  This is especially true if you were raised in a family where there was a high level of dysfunction and conflict. 

    See my articles: 

Relationships: Are You Attracted to People Who Hurt You?

Are You in a Toxic Relationship?

Choosing Healthier Relationships

How Do You Know If You're in an Unhealthy Relationship?

To avoid getting into an unhealthy relationship, it's important to date someone long enough to get to know him or her before you both decide that you're in a committed relationship (see my article: Dating vs. Being in a Relationship: Taking the Time to Get to Know Each Other).

Signs That You're in an Unhealthy Relationship
Here are some red flags to be aware of:

• Excessive Jealousy:  If you know that you've been faithful to your partner, but your partner exhibits excessive jealousy or s/he is accusing you of cheating, this is a significant red flag that your partner is insecure and possessive and that you're in an unhealthy relationship.  This type of problem rarely, if ever, gets better on its own (see my article: Overcoming the Jealousy and Insecurity That's Ruining Your Relationship).

• Controlling Behavior: Related to excessive jealousy, your partner might not exhibit controlling behavior at first, but this can develop later on in the relationship.  Controlling behavior includes your partner telling you where you can go, who to socialize with, when to come home, what to wear, and so on.  This type of behavior tends to get worse over time, so if your partner is trying to control you, you know you're in an unhealthy relationship (see my articles: Relationships: Is It Kindness or Controlling Behavior?).

• Problems With Anger Management: If your partner has problems controlling his or her temper, this is a sign that you're in an unhealthy relationship, especially if your partner refuses to get help.  Problems with anger management include problems with verbal and/or physical aspects of anger management (shouting, making demeaning remarks, breaking things, threatening you, threatening people who are close to you, and so on).

• Emotional Blackmail:  If your partner uses emotional blackmail to control you, this is a sign that you're in a dysfunctional relationship.  For instance, if you and your partner get into an argument and, to get back at you, s/he stops speaking to you, this is emotional blackmail.  This is not the same as when a partner needs a temporary time out to regroup and then comes back to discuss whatever you were disagreeing about.  This is a deliberate form of manipulation to punish you or to get his or her way (see my article: Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Blackmail).

• Gaslighting/Manipulation: When someone uses gaslighting, s/he is attempting to deliberately manipulate you to make you think that you're the problem.  When someone engages in gaslighting, s/he knows that s/he is attempting to manipulate.  It's not just a matter that s/he has a different opinion from the partner.  People who engage in gaslighting are often narcissistic and some of them are sociopathic.  This is a sure sign that you're in an unhealthy relationship (see my article: Are You Being Gaslighted?).

• Addiction: If your partner is abusing substances or engaging in other addictive behavior and s/he refuses to get help, you're in an unhealthy relationship.  Addictive behavior includes excessive drinking, abusing drugs, compulsive gambling, compulsive overspending, sexual compulsivity, compulsive overeating, and so on (see my article: Recovery: Understanding Cross Addiction - Substituting One Addiction For Another).

• Codependent Behavior: Codependent behavior occurs when one or both partners enable the other's unhealthy behavior.  A typical example of this would be if a partner makes excuses for his or her partner's addictive behavior.  This is a sign of an unhealthy relationship and both people need to be willing to work on their issues in therapy to develop healthier ways of relating to each other (see my article: Overcoming Codependency: Taking Care of Yourself First).

• Secrecy and/or Lying: If you're in a relationship with someone who is secretive and doesn't share what's going on with him or her emotionally and socially and/or your partner lies to you, you're in an unhealthy relationship.  This is another problem that doesn't usually change without help (see my articles: Are Toxic Secrets Ruining Your Relationship? and When Trust Breaks Down in a Relationship: Lies of Omission).

• Infidelity: If your partner is cheating on you and s/he refuses to get help in therapy, you're in an unhealthy relationship.  Aside from the emotional pain that infidelity causes, it also creates mistrust and it's often hard to get trust back.  This is not to say that everyone should leave a partner who cheated.  Some couples are able to work through infidelity in individual therapy or in couples therapy.  But if your partner refuses to get help, there is little to no chance that your trust can be restored (see my article: Gaslighting and Infidelity).

• Physical, Emotional and Sexual Abuse: Any form of physical, emotional or sexual abuse is unacceptable and a definite sign that you're in an unhealthy relationship.  Abuse often escalates and gets worse over time.  Your primary concern should be your own safety and well-being.

The items on the above list are some of the most significant signs that you're in an unhealthy relationship, but there might be other signs as well.

Conclusion
I believe that most people know deep down when they're in an unhealthy relationship, but they choose to overlook red flags for any number of reasons.  Denial can also be a strong defense mechanism with regard to not wanting to see the red flags.

Sometimes, people who overlook red flags don't feel good about themselves and they believe that if they let go of the relationship that they're in, they won't find another relationship.  Other people engage in wishful thinking that things will get better on their own, but that rarely happens without help (see my article: Wishful Thinking Often Leads to Poor Relationship Choices).

Getting Help in Therapy
If you think you're in an unhealthy relationship and you're having problems recognizing it or taking steps to preserve your own well-being, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional (see my articles: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Getting help in therapy from an objective clinical professional is an important first step to taking care of yourself and making important decisions for yourself.

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.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

Does it seem like your perception of yourself is off?  Does it seem that logically, you know your sense of self should be higher but, on an emotional level, you're not feeling it?  This is a problem that many people experience.  In this article, I'm focusing on how psychotherapy can help you to overcome the disconnect between what you know and how you feel about yourself (see my article: How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

How Self Perception Develops
Your self perception develops in early infancy and it's based on interactions between you and your primary caregiver (a mother, in most cases).

An infant looks at his mother's face to discover who he is.  If the mother is attuned to the baby most of the time, the baby forms a positive perception of himself.  But if the mother is distracted, depressed or angry most of the time, the baby will often form a negative perception of himself, unless there are other adults who interact positively with the baby enough to offset the negative effects from the mother.

How Early Experiences Affect Self Perception As An Adult
Throughout life people continue to scan other people's faces to discover how these people are reacting towards them.  As children develop into adults, they have a greater ability to develop their own sense of self that is separate from how others perceive them.

But if there was significant early childhood neglect or abuse, it can be challenging to have a positive self perception.  Even when a person might know, on an intellectual level, that she is a "good person" who is kind, honest, intelligent and empathetic towards others, she might not feel it.  The disconnect between what a person knows objectively and what she feels can be disturbing.

The problem is that, as an infant, this person internalized a negative sense of self from the primary caregiver.  Adults have defense mechanisms that can serve to protect them against these negative reactions, but infants don't have strong defense mechanisms.  If something in their environment is bothering them, they can't fight or flee.  If protesting by crying doesn't work, their only recourse is to dissociate.

Later on, as an adult, it can be confusing when someone can't understand the difference in what he thinks vs. what he feels.  He might not know that, when he was an infant, his mother was too depressed, anxious, neglectful or abusive to reflect back love and nurturance to him.

Under these circumstances, it usually doesn't matter how many people might praise him as an adult.  He will probably still feel like he is "not good enough" or "unlovable" (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Fictional Clinical Vignette
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how psychotherapy can help a client to overcome traumatic early experiences so he can develop a more accurate self perception:

Ed
From the time Ed was a young child, he had a poor sense of self.  No matter how many "A's" he got in school, no matter how much his teachers and others praised him, Ed felt unworthy.

Ed's poor sense of self interfered with his making friends and socializing with others.  Fortunately, throughout his life other people saw positive qualities in Ed, liked him, and gravitated towards him.  But Ed had difficulty feeling like a worthwhile individual--no matter how many people befriended him or what he accomplished in his life.

When Ed was in his mid-30s, he won a prestigious award in his field and he attended an awards ceremony where he was honored.  As he listened to the speakers praise him, he was grateful for their kind words, but he felt empty inside because, despite the award and the recognition, he had a poor sense of self.

During the award ceremony, Ed felt an urge to flee.  He knew objectively that he worked hard and his achievements merited the award, but he still felt like a fraud and an impostor, which confused him.

He also felt ashamed because he felt that if the people who were honoring him knew him deep down, they wouldn't think he was a worthy person (see my article: Overcoming the Feeling That People Wouldn't Like You if They Really Knew You and Overcoming Impostor Syndrome).

Shortly after that, Ed realized that, in reality, he had a very good life and he had everything to look forward to but, despite this, he was miserable because of his low sense of self.  He knew he needed to get help in therapy.  So, he contacted a psychotherapist who specialized in his presenting problem and began attending therapy sessions.

After Ed talked about his presenting problem of having a low sense of self, he discussed his family history with his psychotherapist.  He told her that his brother, Jack, who was older by 12 years, told Ed that their mother was significant depressed after Ed was born.

As a result, Ed was raised primarily by a nanny who was known to be efficient but not warm or loving.  Jack also told Ed that their father was often away on business trips and that Ed was usually left alone in his crib for hours at a time.

As his psychotherapist listened to Ed's account of his early childhood history, she realized that it appeared that he was emotionally neglected a child.  As a result, as an infant, Ed didn't get the necessary mirroring and nurturing necessary for an infant's healthy emotional and psychological development.

His psychotherapist provided Ed with psychoeducation, based on mother-infant research, about the importance of early mirroring and nurturing and the negative consequences to emotional and psychological development when they are missing.

Ed had never made these connections before.  While he was glad to know the possible origin of his low sense of self, he also felt discouraged.  He told his therapist that, while it was helpful to have this information, he didn't know what to do with it to change how he felt about himself.

His psychotherapist explained that before experiential therapy, including trauma therapy, was developed, all that psychotherapists could offer clients was insight into their problems.  But since trauma therapy was developed, these problems could now be worked through.

She also provided Ed with information about EMDR therapy, a trauma therapy, which was well researched. She explained that EMDR therapy was developed more than 30 years ago by a psychologist named Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. (see my articles: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain and Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

His psychotherapist recommended that they use EMDR therapy to help Ed to overcome his low sense of self, and Ed agreed.

Over the next several sessions, after the initial period of preparation to do EMDR, Ed provided his psychotherapist with 10 memories that he had about himself from all different times in his life where he felt he was unworthy.

After Ed and his therapist went over the memories, Ed chose a memory to work on using EMDR therapy that still had an emotional charge for him.  Over time, as they processed this memory with EMDR, his psychotherapist asked Ed to think back to the earliest memory that he had where he had the same emotional/physical experiences as he did with the memory that they were working on.

Ed was surprised that he remembered an early memory of being about three years old when he tried to get his mother's attention.  He remembered calling his mother, who was in the room with him, but she didn't respond.  Then, he remembered crying and getting louder and louder, but his mother still didn't respond.  She just sat there.  Eventually, the nanny came, but when she discovered that Ed wasn't hungry and he wasn't in need of anything else that was physical, she put him back in his crib and left.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Trauma and Develop a More Accurate Sense of Self

After several months of processing similar memories, Ed began to actually feel like he was a worthy individual.  His self perception became a lot more positive and objectively accurate.  He was able to take in others' praise because he felt deserving.  He was also able to interact more easily with others and form closer bonds with friends.

Conclusion
Individuals, who experience early trauma of either neglect or abuse, often develop a negative sense of self because they have internalized these experiences at a young age.

This usually results in a disconnect between what these individuals think and what they feel.  Regardless of what someone might think on an objective level, and all evidence to the contrary, s/he will most likely feel a low sense of self, which can be confusing.

The fictional vignette which was provided above is a simplified version of how trauma therapy can help clients in therapy to overcome early trauma that creates a negative sense of self.

Each client is unique in terms of how s/he responds to trauma therapy, like EMDR, and how long it takes to overcome early trauma.

Getting Help in Therapy
Early trauma often has a negative impact on an individual's sense of self, and this affect can be very difficult to overcome alone.

Trauma therapy, like EMDR, was developed to help individuals in therapy to overcome the impact of traumatic experiences (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone).

If you're struggling on your own, you can get help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained as a trauma therapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Once you have overcome your traumatic experiences, you can live a more fulfilling life free of your traumatic history.

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 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.

Books: Imperfect Love in "My Name is Lucy Barton"

The novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout, is primarily about a mother-daughter relationship that is an "imperfect love" where so many emotions, including love, are unspoken.  Although her mother is unable to express her love directly in words, when Lucy most needs her as an adult, the mother demonstrates her love by her actions (see my articles: Mother-Daughter Relationships Over the Course of a Lifetime, Mother-Daughter Relationships: Letting Go of Resentments, and Getting Help in Mother-Daughter Therapy).

Imperfect Love in "My Name is Lucy Barton"

Lucy's Traumatic Childhood History
As young children, Lucy and her two siblings are raised in dire poverty in the rural town of Amgash, IL where the five of them live in her granduncle's garage with no heat or hot water, no TV and no other modern conveniences.

One of Lucy's earliest memories is of being cold in bed and her mother bringing her a hot water bottle so she can try to get warm.  She also remembers going hungry, and having only bread and molasses to eat as a child.

Aside from the financial poverty, there's also an emotional estrangement between members of this dysfunctional family--despite their close proximity living together in a small space in the garage (or maybe because of their physical proximity).  Even among Lucy and her siblings, there's no affection or closeness, as if they are suspicious of one another (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

There is so much that is unspoken.  For instance, her father, who served in the military during World War II, suffers from what we now know is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But neither the father nor the mother name it--possibly they didn't know what it was.  They also don't talk about his traumatic experiences.  Lucy thinks of her father's odd behavior as "the thing" because it remains unnamed and undefined.

It is only later, when Lucy brings her soon-to-be husband of German descent to meet that family that Lucy learns that her father is uncomfortable around Germans.  Her father is awkward and unable to look Lucy's fiance in the eye, but he never explains his discomfort.  During that same visit, when Lucy and her mother are alone, her mother scolds her for bringing a young man of German descent to their home because this upsets the father. But, of course, Lucy had no way of knowing that this would upset her father because her parents never discussed his discomfort with Germans.

Later in life, Lucy finds out that her father murdered two young, innocent, unarmed German civilians because they startled him.  She learns that not one day went by in her father's life when he wasn't haunted by this memory. So, in retrospect, Lucy realizes that when she brought her soon-to-be-husband to meet her parents, her father experienced it as if one of those young dead German men came back to haunt him.

As a child, Lucy also experiences her own trauma, including both parents' sudden impulses to hit Lucy and her siblings for no apparent reason.

One of the other ongoing traumas in her life is that, as a desperate form of "childcare," her parents regularly locked Lucy up in her father's truck while they were both out working, and she is trapped in the truck with a snake.  This results in a lifelong phobia of snakes or even hearing the word "snake."  The reader gets a visceral sense of how desperate and frightened Lucy felt trapped in the truck with no one within earshot to rescue her.

Due to their poverty and what others perceived as their oddness, Lucy and her siblings are ostracized and made fun of by the children at school.  Her classmates make fun of her for her clothing.  They also despise Lucy and her cousin for being hungry and dumpster diving for food.  And, since they have no TV and have never gone to the movies as children, they are also culturally ostracized from their classmates (see my article: Feeling Like an Outsider).

When Lucy and her siblings are children, the father humiliates Lucy's brother after the father discovers that the brother is secretly cross dressing in the mother's clothing.  The father forces his son to wear his mother's clothing and high heels in public to shame him while the father drives alongside him loudly demeaning him.

Later on in life, Lucy finds out from her mother that her brother, as an adult who remains home with the parents, sleeps with a neighbor's pigs the night before they are about to be slaughtered, and he reads children's books about a family who lives on the prairie.  No one knows why and no one asks the brother about his unspoken suffering (see my articles: The Role of the Family Scapegoat and Being the "Different One" in Your Family).

In her childhood, there are a couple of people in Lucy's life who are sympathetic.  One of them is the school janitor, Tommy, who allows Lucy to stay in an empty classroom to do her homework and to sleep in the warmth of the classroom.

Although Lucy is too shy to speak with Tommy, she recognizes that he is being kind to her by allowing her to stay in the classroom.  She remains there everyday, until she has to go home, because there is heat in the classroom, unlike where she lives in the garage.

Tommy's own poignant story is told in Ms. Strout's next book, Anything is Possible, and the reader develops a better understanding from that books about why he is as empathetic as he is towards Lucy.  He has his own tragic history, but he is also a resilient survivor.

Lucy and Her Mother Reconnect: An Imperfect Love
After she moves to New York City and she is married with two young daughters, Lucy is hospitalized for nine weeks with a mysterious infection.  While she is hospitalized, Lucy's husband arranges for her mother to come stay with her in the hospital.

After not seeing each other for years, there is an awkwardness and tension between Lucy and her mother, especially since the mother is unable to express her love for Lucy in words.  Also, from the mother's standpoint, there is no possibility of discussing all that is unresolved between them.  But, for Lucy, having her mother there--even just hearing her voice--is soothing.  Lucy knows that, in her own way, her mother loves her, and she becomes aware of how important her mother is to her.

Even though the mother is unable to tell Lucy in words that she loves her, just the fact that she got on a plane for the first time in her life, as frightened as she was by the experience, and stayed by Lucy's side for five days with little to no sleep, demonstrates how much she loves Lucy.

They spend most of their time talking about the people they know from their small town.  Her mother gossips about their neighbors, focusing on their unhappy marriages.  But she doesn't talk about Lucy's father and what must have been a difficult marriage for mother given the father's PTSD symptoms and their crushing poverty.

The reader gets the sense that, even though the mother is talking about other people's unhappy marriages, on an unconscious level, she is actually talking indirectly about her own unhappy marriage.

The mother also alludes cryptically to her own experience of feeling unsafe as a reason why she doesn't sleep well and prefers catnaps.  She alludes to a history of having to be vigilant.  But when Lucy asks her mother why she didn't feel safe, her mother doesn't respond, so it remains another unspoken mystery.

When Lucy is taken for a CT scan, her mother searches for Lucy in the hospital basement so that Lucy won't be alone.  Lucy knows that this was a big challenge for her mother.  Once again, there is an unspoken understanding between them that even if they're not telling each other "I love you," there is a lot of love between them.

Despite Lucy's mother's emotional support, she leaves very abruptly when Lucy's doctor tells them that Lucy might need an operation.  The mother never communicates why she feels the need to leave so quickly, but the reader senses that she is running from some unnamed fear that even she might not understand.  This saddens Lucy because she wants her mother to stay, especially if she will need surgery, but she understands that her mother is too frightened to stay.

Despite the unspoken love conveyed while Lucy is in the hospital, after her mother leaves, they go back to their usual emotional estrangement and speak only on holidays and birthdays. The reader senses that Lucy's mother cannot sustain the level of closeness they had when Lucy was in the hospital.

Throughout her stay in the hospital, Lucy likes to look out her window at the Chrysler building lit up at night as if she sees it is as a strong and sturdy beacon of hope that assures her.

Lucy and the Kindness of Strangers
As a result of her traumatic childhood experiences, Lucy develops a strong sense of empathy for other people's loneliness and trauma.  She intuits that she and they are kindred spirits.

Throughout her life, Lucy is drawn to lonely, traumatized people that she barely knows who are kind to her.  Most of these people are just passing through her life, but she recognizes and appreciates their kindness.  She relates to the quote by Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" and all that this implies about isolation and loneliness (see my article: Overcoming Loneliness and Social Isolation).

Of the people who are kind to her, there's the attending physician in the hospital who visits her every day including weekends.  Lucy finds out indirectly that the doctor lost his family during the Holocaust and that he carries this sadness with him.  Without words, he seems to intuitively understand Lucy.  And Lucy senses his sadness and loneliness.  She senses how much he cares about her.

There's also the kind neighbor in her building, who is a psychoanalyst, originally from France, who sees Lucy's artistic side.  When he learns that Lucy is writing, he tells her to be "ruthless" in her writing, which she doesn't understand at first.  They have an unspoken affection for each other, but Lucy doesn't know much about him.  After he dies from complications related to AIDS (this is the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s), she finds out that he was gay.  At that point, she understands the cause of his loneliness and isolation.

Lucy Discovers Her Voice in Her Writing
Lucy finds her voice in her writing.  Although she lacks confidence and tends to minimize her accomplishments, other people see the value of her work.  There's a writing teacher, who is a well-known New York City writer, who, just like Lucy, also suffers from PTSD.  She praises Lucy's writing and encourages her to continue writing.

Lucy seems to sense that she and these lonely, traumatized people are kindred souls.

Lucy's Sense of Hope and Resiliency
One of the amazing things about this character is that, despite her traumatic experiences, Lucy remains hopeful and resilient, in spite of her trauma.  She finds strength where she can, and she doesn't seem to feel victimized by her experiences.  She is also able to see the positive qualities in others, and she remains open to making connections with them (see my articles: Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges, Overcoming Trauma and Developing Resilience, and Posttraumatic Growth: Developing a Greater Sense of Hope and Meaning in the Aftermath of Trauma).

I highly recommend this book.  Elizabeth Strout's characters are people you can relate to, and she is able to convey their mysterious inner worlds in a poetic way without sentimentality.

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 specialize in working with psychological 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.

See My Other Articles About Books:
Love and Longing in "Enigma Variations" by Andre Aciman
"Call Me By Your Name" - by Andre Aciman: Part 1: "Is It Better to Speak or to Die?"
"Call Me By Your Name" by Andre Aciman: The Concept of Living Parallel Lives
Denial and Illusions in "The Iceman Cometh" - by Eugene O'Neill
"Three Tall Women" - by Edward Albee
Reading Literature and the Positive Effect on the Brain
Books: "Tea With Winnicott" by Brett Khar

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.