Category: Trust Issues
The Good Therapy Blog
January 31st, 2012 |
Love is one of the most elemental of emotions—it is a building block to some of our deepest relationships and a component in many of our happiest days. Yet the ability to freely give and receive love is a fragile skill, which traumatic experiences can all too easily dent or damage. Learning how to be loved is a vital part of your healing, and here are a few tips on how to regain your ability to accept someone’s care, concern, and nurture.
The first set of tips have to do with the person who is expressing kindness, care, concern, nurture, attention, aka love to you. Because you have experienced... Read More
January 27th, 2012 |
After having worked in a residential treatment facility for abused and neglected girls for 8 years, I observed that the phenomenon of learned helplessness had become an all-to-common denominator for these children. It was very rare that an abused child was placed with us for a single incident of abuse. By the time these children reached our facility, many of them had already been physically or sexually abused numerous times throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Many times these children had been abused not by a single perpetrator but by several different people, including members of their... Read More
January 19th, 2012 |
What would you do? An important romantic figure from your past finds you on an internet social media site. Perhaps this was your first love. This renewed connection brings to mind the passion and enthusiasm of youth—before children, financial problems, and middle age. In your mind, you travel back to a time before career worries, mortgage problems, and thinning hair to a time of anticipation, optimism, and more energy. What would you do? Is it a wrong choice to maintain contact on-line? Is it wrong to have a texting relationship? Where do you draw the line? What is the line that would determine... Read More
January 12th, 2012 |
It is not a surprise that we have heard much stirring in the last several years about the importance of empathy and its role in everything from attachment, to neural development, to world positivity. There is an empathy shortage in the world, and we are seeing the far-reaching effects. Bullying. Violence. Insensitivity. Selfishness. In practice, we often see the damage done with children who are traumatized because of early life experiences characterized by a lack of empathy. Abuse, neglect, emotional bankruptcy, painful attachments and a violation of trust all contribute to a child’s ability... Read More
January 9th, 2012 |
Little white lies are seemingly innocuous, but high-stakes lies can be a matter of life or death. Understanding the facial expressions of people who tell high-stakes lies (deceivers) could be crucial to aiding criminal investigations, and even saving lives. “High-stakes lies can be accompanied by powerful emotions—fear, remorse, anger, or even excitement—that must be inhibited or convincingly faked,” said Leanne ten Brinke of the Department of Psychology at the Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science and... Read More
© Copyright 2012 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Orlando Bureau - All Rights Reserved.
December 27th, 2011 |
Self-disclosure by therapists, a practice that was once frowned upon in psychoanalysis, has become a commonly accepted practice. Therapists who self-disclose believe that they are benefiting their clients by sharing similar problematic situations and offering experienced resolutions. However, the effects of specific types of self-disclosure countertransference (CT) have not been examined until now. “The definition of CT that has been used in most research, and that was employed in the present study, views CT as the therapist’s... Read More
© Copyright 2011 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Glendale Bureau - All Rights Reserved.
October 13th, 2011 |
What’s “falling in love” anyway?
It has two components:
Part 1: How the other person makes you feel
Part 2: How you feel about the other person.
These two parts are inextricably bound up together, and as a matter of fact, Part 2 follows from Part 1. Here’s why:
The “falling in love” kind of love, not the long-term love that you have, say, for your parents or children, is about receiving. The other kind of love—the tender feelings for children, or the compassionate love that you have when you’ve been married 50 years—is about giving.
So, if that’s true, what... Read More
July 29th, 2011 |
If hope is the thing with feathers, as Emily Dickenson said, then trust floats on gossamer wings.
Most people lose that child-like trust with the end of a first love, but not all. I have known a handful of souls who maintained it until death, or appeared to, but it's certainly not the norm. Life intrudes on the fantasy that someone will be an all-loving, supportive parent. Paradoxically, if you had toxic parents, it's even harder to relinquish this desire as yearning for a kinder, gentler... Read More
July 22nd, 2011 |
Rarely does a client call for an appointment and say that they want help with their codependency. One of the many issues that bring clients to therapy for codependency is relationship troubles. Sometimes a client will call with a broken heart and feel that they should have recovered from it by now. Other times there are problems with jealousy and trust issues. A client may call re: difficulty communicating with their spouse which often means the inability... Read More
July 8th, 2011 |
Many of you may remember the role of the Greek Chorus in literature classes from high school or college. They appeared in the works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripidies and Aristophanes, to name just a few. Their role was to explain what they thought was going on and would intentionally or unintentionally “stir the pot”. In modern times, it is often our friends and families who comprise our own personal Greek Choruses as they work so lovingly to protect us from what we have not yet experienced and to help us along in life. Consider the following scenario:
Bob and Cynthia are getting divorced.... Read More
April 29th, 2011 |
1 out of 2 people in the U.S. has a chronic illness and in 96% of these cases, the chronic illness is invisible. This means the illness is not readily apparent to others because the person doesn’t use an assistive device like a cane or a wheelchair. Most people with an invisible illness can tell you story after story of family members, friends, co-workers, bosses, etc. who don’t actually believe they’re ill. They’ve been given snide looks when exiting their car after parking in a handicapped spot. They’ve been told by their friends that they look too good to be sick. They’ve been... Read More
April 6th, 2011 |
The word “infidelity” is pretty common these days, with examples daily in the news. Celebrities, neighbors and friends all have a story to tell about how they have been betrayed by their partner’s sexual indiscretions. Usually we think about infidelity as sexual or emotional betrayal, being lied to and deceived by a partner in the worst way that we can imagine. But there’s another type of infidelity that is becoming more common, and that is of financial infidelity. This type of cheating pushes at the hot button for many relationships and marriages- that of money and finances.
Financial... Read More
March 24th, 2011 |
The recent sexual assault of CBS news reporter Lara Logan during her coverage of the February 2011 Egyptian uprising is a stark reminder that any woman is vulnerable to assault, regardless of her public status. You don’t have to travel to a distant country during political upheaval to be at risk. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (2000), 17.6% of American women have been victims of an attempted or completed sexual assault. And while men can be sexual assault survivors, 90% of rape victims are women.
Here are some statistics on sexual assault:
1. 32.4% of rape survivors... Read More
February 11th, 2011 |
Full permission has been given by the client to tell this story on GoodTherapy.org. All identifying information has been changed.
Images hold keys that unlock our inner experiences. Images can penetrate built up defenses in the mind that dispel or diminish the importance of feelings and experiences in our lives. During a traumatic event(s), images, sounds, textures, smells, and tastes can become hardwired in the brain to the event. At the time of a trauma, the body internalizes feelings that might otherwise overwhelm normal ego function. Later those trauma experiences can be accessed or... Read More
