“In love we face challenges and in embracing these challenges, conflicts, and dark places, there is immense potential for transformation.” – J. Welwood

When conflict happens in your relationship, how do you react? Do you fly under the radar hoping to avoid detection, or come out fighting and go on the defensive?

Relationships can be wonderful, uplifting, and joyful, as well as challenging, painful, and destructive. When things are great and we’re getting along there is a feeling of deep connection and safety. But when there’s a sign of pain, misunderstanding, or disconnection, defenses are triggered and vulnerability goes into hiding. When conflict is viewed as a threat and met with defensiveness we get stuck in a power struggle that takes our relationship on an emotional rollercoaster ride.

Conflict isn’t a threat to your relationship. Sometimes we view conflict as a threat and respond to it as if it’s a sign that our relationship is in need of fixing or that one of us is at fault. In reality, conflict isn’t the problem—it’s how we meet conflict that becomes the problem.

Why We Don’t See Eye to Eye

When two people who grew up in two different homes decide to make a life together, conflict is going to happen. Each of us comes into relationship with different ways of seeing the world and when these perspectives clash, we encounter conflict. It isn’t about right or wrong; it’s about perception and how we see the world.

For example, if you grew up with a parent or sibling(s) who yelled and criticized you when they were angry, and this scared or frustrated you as a child, you might have learned to avoid angry confrontations at all costs. Now, in your present day relationship, if your partner gets angry your defensive reaction might be to ignore, shut down, or try to get your partner to calm down.

While your partner might benefit from learning how to tone down his/her anger, it’s also possible that your reaction to anger needs to change. The same goes for the partner who is angry—they may have grown up in a family where their needs weren’t being met so they learned that in order to be heard they had to yell, sulk, or complain.

If you both continue to meet this situation with defensiveness, then you’ll be mired in a power struggle that fills your relationship with negativity and resentment. If, on the other hand, you meet conflict with a willingness to listen and an intention to understand, and have empathy for each other, then there’s a potential for healing and growth to happen.

Shift from Conflict to Connection

Learning to become a healing partner takes patience, time, and commitment. Dr. Harville Hendrix, the founder of Imago Relationship Therapy, states that couples have the potential to become healing partners. He says, “It’s in relationship we are wounded so it’s in relationship we can heal.”

Learning to become a healing partner is what helps us develop a safe, intimate, and loving relationship. To get there it takes practice, patience, and a willingness to be vulnerable.

It’s when we learn to soften our defenses and become vulnerable and open that we begin to connect in a way that creates a feeling of safety, love, and connection. It only takes one partner to shift out of the power struggle and into connection. Below are some steps you can take toward helping yourself, your partner, and the relationship.

Steps to help soothe reactivity and calm difficult emotions:

• Develop awareness of your triggers. Notice when your body goes into flight, fight, flee mode. (I.e. rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, muscles tensing, etc.)
• Take time out to soothe reactive emotions.
• During the time out, don’t dwell or analyze what happened. Let go of thoughts and stories and take care of yourself.
• Connect with your breathing. Breathe in and out slowly, and attune to the sensation of the breath flowing in and out of your body.
• As you breathe, scan through your body and soften the places that are tense.
• Feel a sense of self-compassion as you acknowledge feelings of hurt.
• Engage in activities that help alleviate stress, such as exercising, walking, meditating, or doing yoga.
• Once you are less reactive, see if you can connect with the need or hurt that’s beneath the trigger. Notice if you’re hooked into a story about what your partner’s intention was when you got triggered. Use the line, “What I told myself was_____. For example: “What I told myself when you were late to pick me up was that I’m not important to you.”
• Share what was going on for you (your feelings and needs) without blaming, criticizing, or attacking your partner. Use “I” statements and take responsibility for your reactivity. For example, “I feel hurt when we make plans and aren’t able to follow through.”
• Learn how to use intentional dialogue as a healing way to connect and learn about each other’s triggers, needs, and hurts. During this exercise, one person speaks as the other person listens with the intention of understanding, validating, and empathizing with the other, then switch.
• Feel compassion toward yourself and your partner when conflict happens.
• Be patient as you learn how to shift from a reactive response to one that heals and connects.

Meet Conflict with Acceptance, Understanding, and Empathy

Conflict in relationships is a catalyst for healing and growth. Learning to approach it in a healing way is challenging. It takes time, patience, and practice. In the end, if you want to develop an intimate, safe, and loving relationship, then it’s essential that you learn to approach it as an opportunity for healing and growth.

Remember, we come into relationship with past hurts, unmet needs, defenses, and parts of us that are in need of growth. When we let go of defenses and open our hearts to each other in a relationship, we create an opportunity for both of us to heal and grow—as individuals and as a couple—as we journey together through life.

May you have love, joy, and peace in your life.

Thank you for writing. The fact that your brother is angry at you for helping his family is a likely indication of how severe his gambling has become. (In addition to his seeking “lower companions,” as 12-step literature says.) Your question reminds me of how powerful family “systems” are, especially those affected by (what sounds like) addiction or compulsive behavior. It’s remarkable that you are being generous enough to allow his family to stay with you but wonder if you’re doing “enough.” I think the short answer is yes. You’re doing a great service.

But you ask another question that bears some examining, namely, “Am I doing the right thing here?” I’m coming to the conclusion that when compulsivity or addiction is involved, there is no “right thing.” For instance, partners of addicted spouses will ask me, “Is the right thing to stay or go? Try to help them get into rehab or is that enabling?” The right answer is yes and no to all of the above.

The downside to completely detaching (generally speaking, mind you) is that you begin to feel guilt or self-criticism for being aloof; if you get caught up too much in helping and it goes nowhere, you are likely to feel resentful, taken for granted, and so on. So I suppose there’s this magical balance that much smarter folks than I have not yet figured out. I suppose that, like all things human, God (or the devil) is in the detail. But gambling is particularly destructive because it involves money, which can crush a family’s resources like Thor’s hammer.

The advantage here—not always the case—is that your brother knows he has a problem. Not knowing how to stop is nothing to be ashamed of. Addiction or compulsivity on the level we’re talking about is as much a disease as depression or anxiety. (In fact, addiction parallels both.) How does a person “stop” bipolar? Or diabetes? Well, you see a professional. Fortunately, there are self-help meetings (Gamblers Anonymous) as well as addiction therapists or even treatment centers (such as the Control Center in Los Angeles or Sierra Tucson or The Meadows in Arizona) that can help. (More treatment centers are taking insurance these days.)

The point is, he doesn’t have to know how to stop because he probably can’t. (Step 1 in a 12-step program is saying, essentially, that you can’t stop and your life is chaotic due to that fact.) Also, you might check your own motives in that many family members in your position may (1) minimize the addiction (is it really that bad? Sadly, yes), (2) think you can “do something” best left to a professional counselor or psychologist, or (3) doubt yourself for not “doing more.” You cannot will a person with depression to get better by good intentions; ditto with addiction. The most eloquent Shakespearean speech will not convince an addicted person to do squat. Usually it comes down to setting consequences for the addicted person that may sound hard but tend to get attention: If you don’t stop, you’re going to ruin your family and/or lose your wife and/or access to your children. If you don’t stop, I need to pull away and detach until you get help; it’s too painful for me to watch a ship sink while the captain refuses life boats. Many people addicted to alcohol, for instance, don’t get help until their second, third, or fourth DUI. Many with sex addiction don’t stop until their partner threatens to end the relationship. And so forth.

You may also try to organize a family intervention, either informally or formally. This is trickier than it looks (despite what the movies and TV show us). I know some interventionists who would be willing to consult with you (perhaps for free or low cost) should you want more information on this; you can contact me via this website for more information.

You’re obviously a very caring and loving brother or you wouldn’t be writing. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is tell the addicted part of the person, “We’re sick of you and how you’ve hijacked the person we love.” I would add that the sooner you and other family members—and your brother—take action, the better. Addiction is progressive and, like a shark, stays hungry and keeps moving. Thanks again for writing.

Best wishes,
Darren

My work with people often drives me to explore themes that are currently showing up in my counseling practice. If you are a counselor, you know what I mean. You may have many clients or therapist consultees presenting with the same needs, perhaps some who are saying similar things of late. That’s not to say that these issues are the “same,” for they are not. Nevertheless, there are topics that may repeat themselves. I pay attention to these because I believe that there is much to explore and learn by being aware of patterns.

A pattern I have seen of late is related to eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) work, specifically about the process of being “ready” to do EMDR. I have had a lot of therapists inquiring about their clients’ readiness to do EMDR. Keep in mind that if you are doing EMDR, you are always doing EMDR; it just depends on the phase you are in. If you are one of my EMDR clients or therapist consultees, you know how much I emphasize this as key to understanding the EMDR therapy model. Keep this in mind: EMDR is a process, a model, and not a technique.

EMDR’s preparation phase is phase two of the eight phases of EMDR. EMDR therapists look for people to have a minimum of two state-change skills as part of this phase. In phase two we are making sure that the client has the ability to not only tolerate emotion, but also to shift into a relaxed state, a para-sympathetic response. In other words, can the person bring up a disturbing event, be “in it,” but then also utilize a relaxation skill or calming technique to then change states if needed?

Keep in mind that the concept of changing states may be something that sounds easy, but for many it is not. Some folks seeking to utilize EMDR therapy as part of their trauma recovery may need more extensive preparation-phase support. This is especially true in the case of those struggling with dissociation and addictions.

In its simplest form, a state change means being able to utilize a relaxation skill to settle down one’s system. State-change skills can help the EMDR client to become calmer and more settled while still maintaining “dual attention”—i.e., being present while bringing up traumatic disturbance(s). In contrast, and though it may appear like it, the ability to utilize state-change skills does not mean changing states via dissociation. Certainly, one’s ability to dissociate may appear similar to a state-change skill, and is a survival skill, but dissociation keeps us “away from” traumatic material and from integrating the somatic, visual, emotional, and cognitive aspects of it to then heal.

For example, dissociation takes one away from the present moment because the past feels as if it is happening now and it feels safer to leave the present. But to be able to heal and integrate the traumatic material requires that state of being present. We just have to learn the dance between feeling the disturbing material and being able to shift into a contrasting, calmer state.

In exploring the concept of EMDR and state-change skills, addictions can also be explored as an attempt to chemically or behaviorally illicit a state change. I often explain to people that substance abuse is often driven by an ill-fated attempt to chemically dissociate. One can easily become entrenched in the vicious cycle of using addictive substances and behaviors to shift “out” of traumatic material in order to feel something, anything, and everything different from the pain of a traumatic history. And, for many people, addictions have become a way to change states, to feel away from and out of traumatic material.

The bottom line is that to heal, trauma histories beg to be accessed, stimulated, and reprocessed. The challenge can be in our making sure that EMDR clients are fully supported in having the state-change skills in place to be able to come back, to ground, and to stay present first. Therefore, creating and implementing these state-change skills can be the key to supporting EMDR clients in their recovery and throughout EMDR’s eight phases.

This is a fantastic question that really strikes at the heart of one of psychotherapy’s cornerstones—confidentiality. You are not at all alone in feeling like you have something you desperately need to talk about. Many people crave the opportunity to confide in someone who is not part of their lives and who can guarantee complete and total privacy. This is exactly what therapy can provide. It is also one of the reasons therapy works. The promise of confidentiality allows people to say, feel, and explore things that they might not otherwise be able to.

Of course, there are some limits to confidentiality. For example, if you tell a therapist that you are going to commit suicide, your therapist is required to intervene in order to prevent the suicide. Under such circumstances, the intervention likely would be hospitalizing you. It would require acknowledging that you are a client in therapy, that you are planning to commit suicide, and any other relevant information the hospital might need to help you. Also, if you tell your therapist that you are going to hurt or kill someone else, your therapist is required to intervene not only to stop you, but to warn your potential target. Finally, if you reveal any ongoing child or elder abuse, your therapist must report this to appropriate authorities in order to protect the person, or people, being harmed. Under any of these circumstances, your therapist would be ethically and legally required to breach confidentiality. However, even when such situations occur, the therapist is obligated to reveal only what is necessary to address the crisis at hand.

Teaching and supervision constitute the only other contexts in which a therapist may ethically share information about your sessions. However, no identifying information about the client should ever be revealed in such cases. That is, your therapist might consult with a supervisor or colleague about how best to help a person in your situation, but he or she should never disclose anything that would reveal your identity. If your therapist is a supervisor or professor, he or she might also talk about your treatment (again, without revealing your identity) for training purposes.

Nonetheless, while therapists should not be sharing any information with anyone other than for the purposes of teaching and supervision, unfortunately some therapists do. I would venture to say, though, that when therapists let information about a session slip out when talking with friends or family (which, to be clear, they should not do), they still are not revealing any identifying information. It is very difficult for me to imagine a therapist getting all the way through graduate training and postgraduate licensing processes without a deep understanding and respect for the necessity of confidentiality. The vast majority of us go to great lengths to protect it.

I’ve shared a lot of information about the rules and limits of confidentiality and even a bit about what really happens, even if it isn’t supposed to. I’d like to leave you with a suggestion. Find a therapist and work on building a relationship with him or her. When you feel like you can trust your therapist, talk about your concerns about revealing this secret. If your therapist is someone who tends to let things slip here and there, knowing your concerns about revealing this secret should lead him or her to rigidly adhere to the strictest rules of confidentiality. This may also cue your therapist to get your permission before consulting with colleagues or supervisors, and before using your treatment as a training example. Therapy exists, in no small part, for people to unburden themselves of their deepest, darkest secrets. My hope for you is that you find a therapist you can trust, and that you experience the incredible relief that unburdening yourself can offer.

All my best,
Sarah

The holiday season is rife with the spoils of consumer culture as people flood malls and shopping centers searching for gifts, decorations, and foods to be purchased and shared at parties and gatherings. Vehicle traffic and stress levels go up while checking account balances go down, and some are left feeling drained and depleted. Others revel in the simple pleasure of buying presents and showing love in the form of gifts and other trinkets and treasures. And there is a beauty to it all—in the giving and receiving, the passing of plates, and the many buildings and homes decorated with strings of lights and holiday wreaths and other displays.

But at the core of these widely shared forms of celebration is a thread that runs through the masses, tying people together in the first-world dilemma known as materialism. Many are familiar with the dreaded sense of buyer’s remorse that often kicks in regarding an impulse purchase, which differs dramatically from the joy and relief experienced when finding that perfect present for a loved one. In the wake of an unnecessary and financially unwise purchase, a person may feel a range of negative emotions: guilt, shame, and self-loathing being a few examples.

Recent research suggests that, aside from its established negative effects on well-being, the impact of materialism extends to a person’s ability to process negative or traumatic events in life (Ruvio, Somer, and Rindfleisch, 2013). Basically, the researchers found that those who place great emphasis and importance on material wealth and possessions will respond to the mere threat of a crisis situation with unhealthy and materialistic coping mechanisms.

The research team, made up of professors from the University of Illinois, Michigan State University, and the University of Haifa, drew their conclusions by conducting a field study in Israel and a national survey in the United States. The information they gathered examined the experience of trauma-related stress and how it affects people’s consumerist habits of buying and spending.

“Materialistic people cope with bad events through materialistic mechanisms,” said Aric Rindfleisch, one of the researchers and a marketing professor in the University of Illinois’ College of Business. “When there’s a terrorist attack in Israel, people who are materialistic suffer higher levels of distress and are more likely to compensate for that through higher levels of compulsive and impulsive purchasing.”

The U.S. results showed that those who experienced large amounts of anxiety surrounding death mirrored the habits of those who lived in fear of terrorist attacks in Israel, and that both groups were prone to dealing with that stress through compulsive spending.

In a report on the study published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Rindfleisch described materialism as a response to personal insecurities. He also discussed the comfort people experience through the simple act of shopping. “Retail therapy,” as he calls it, offers a “short-term fix” to largely unsolvable problems that are out of our immediate control.

If nothing else, it may be helpful for those in consumer-rich societies to be aware of this tendency as they move through the endless aisles of material goods and contemplate purchases during and after the holiday season.

 References:

1. Medical News Today. (2013, November 28). Materialism makes bad events even worse. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/269379.php
2. Ruvio, A., Somer, E., and Rindfleisch, A. (2013, July). When bad gets worse: the amplifying effect of materialism on traumatic stress and maladaptive consumption. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Abstract retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11747-013-0345-6

You may have heard it said that you can’t truly love another person if you don’t love yourself. I wholeheartedly believe this to be true, and I think it speaks to the “mirror-type” relationship between self-esteem and other-esteem. Basically, the esteem you feel for others tends to reflect, or mirror, your own level of self-esteem.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Low Esteem for Others

In extreme cases, people whose self-esteem is so damaged that they feel worthless may engage in criminal activity that hurts other people or damages property. Having no compassion for themselves (which they would if they enjoyed healthy self-esteem), these people find it hard to access compassion for their victims.

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High Esteem for Others

Sometimes, treating others well is simply a mark of your own healthy self-esteem. But you might point out that it’s perfectly possible (even common) for people with low self-esteem to treat others better than they treat themselves.

How is a person with low self-esteem able to have such high esteem for other people? Where’s the mirror effect in this scenario?

The answer lies in what’s beneath all that good behavior directed at others.

If you scratch the surface of this “esteeming-others” behavior, you’re likely to find not genuine affection or respect, but fear of abandonment or rejection. The good behavior toward other people is motivated not by esteem for them, but by something more like fear of losing their approval.

So the true level of self-esteem (low) is reflected in a secretly low opinion of others, masquerading as kindness.

Think about it: Constantly putting others above yourself could be like saying, “I don’t believe you are good, strong, or mature enough to handle it if I don’t please you, so I’m going to be extra nice so as not to upset you.”

Here are five aspects of self-esteem that are reflected in relationships with others:

1. Respect for efforts made, not just results.

High self-esteem places a value on trying as well as succeeding. If I have good self-esteem, I’ll give myself credit for trying even if I fail.

This doesn’t mean pulling the wool over my eyes and pretending I succeeded when I didn’t. I don’t need to prop myself up with lies if my self-esteem is intact.

Mirror effect: Similarly, I recognize your efforts even if things don’t go perfectly.

Let’s say we had an argument and you get me a greeting card that says, “I’m sorry.” It’s a musical card that plays a song you thought I might like.

If I don’t like the song, but there was no way for you to know that, I can still recognize your effort to reconcile with me. I’ll focus on that, and it will be meaningful to me that you tried.

2. Acceptance of limitations.

If I have high self-esteem, it gives me the security of knowing that, even though I’m a flawed human being, I am worthy at a basic level anyway.

I don’t have to shut my eyes to reality; once I know what they are, I can accept actual limitations of talent, intellect, strength, etc.

I don’t have to do everything perfectly or even very well. I have my strengths, others have theirs, and there’s room for all of us in this world.

Mirror effect: If you have a limitation that affects me, such as an inability to multitask that drives me nuts, I can see it as a limitation just like the ones I have, rather than a personal attack on me.

3. Acknowledgment of accomplishments.

It feels good to be able to acknowledge my achievements. If I can celebrate my successes, I can enjoy yours, too.

Mirror effect: Your accomplishments don’t take away from my good feelings about myself, nor vice versa. But unless I can acknowledge my own accolades, yours will feel equally unimportant, overblown, or even toxic.

4. Embrace of human-ness.

If I’m allowed to be human, so are you.

If I’m not, then you’re not.

5. Care taken with emotions.

How I treat myself when I have difficult feelings will be how I feel toward you when you express emotions.

If I can’t stand to cry, if I’m frightened of my own anger, if I refuse to engage with my grief … your emotions will be equally frightening to me.

Mirror effect: If I recognize my emotions as normal and important parts of me, to be heeded and worked through, then I’ll welcome your expression of your feelings.

Water seeks its own level, and so does esteem. Learning to genuinely value yourself will help you value others and enjoy relationships more.

The winter solstice is nigh upon us, and marks the shortest, darkest day of the year. The term solstice is derived from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand.” On December 21, the sun’s high point in its daily path will be at the southernmost point for the year. The next day, it will begin its journey northward, each day becoming a little bit lighter. But for a few days before and after this period, the changes will be so slight that the sun’s high point will appear to stand still, even though powerful change is taking place.

The solstice also officially marks the beginning of winter. Seeds planted in the spring have yielded their harvest, and although we now commence celebration and feasting, the solstice serves as a celestial reminder that soon we must allow for stillness, reflecting on the past year before beginning anew in the next.

At times, the urge to resist going within can be strong. We may try to distract ourselves; parties and libations and presents serve this purpose quite effectively. Setting aside time for reflection enables us to make meaning of our year, however. And once we understand what has transpired, we can better decide what it is we hope to create in the coming year. If we allow it, this can be a time of grieving those we have lost, as well as celebrating their gifts and memories that remain. Similarly, it can be a time of gratitude for our accomplishments or the opportunities we have been given, as well as a time for identifying what we would like to do differently going forward.

Ideally, if we are brave enough, as we take stock of our lives we can create space to allow ourselves to fully experience the feelings we have, without fighting or judging them. We can breathe through them. It is this process that can help us to then release these feelings sufficiently to move forward—the equivalent of surveying what one’s plantings have yielded, appreciating the harvest for whatever it was, and deciding whether we hope to harvest the same or something different the next time around.

[fat_widget_left]A reflective period need not—and should not—be a time to be unduly harsh with ourselves, but rather to be lovingly honest. Firm yet forgiving. After all, endless rumination and self-recrimination keeps us trapped in a past we cannot change, and no one benefits from this. An attitude of self-forgiveness can liberate us from old patterns or ways of being that we likely adopted for a reason, but that do not serve us nor adequately reflect who we are and who we’d like to be.

What an incredible gift to give ourselves.

Activities that facilitate going within include meditation, setting aside time for silence, being in nature, and engaging in a creative activity, among others. If you find it difficult to quiet your mind at first, move your awareness to your breath, observing it as if you were observing the waves of the ocean, leaves blowing off into the distance, or clouds drifting across the sky. As you do so, you may wish to ask yourself the following questions. Allow your answers to be honest.

1. What do I really want each aspect of my life (e.g., family, work, romance, creativity, spirituality, health) to be like in the coming year?
2. How much effort am I wiling to put into making positive change?
3. What tool or support will I draw upon to help me when things feel difficult (e.g., conscious breathing, meditation, psychotherapy, friends/family, religious community)?
4. How will I accept the things that I may be unable to change—my best efforts notwithstanding?
5. How will I know when I have achieved positive change (what will this look like specifically)?
6. Can I commit to loving myself as I am now—the only way I will ever be in the present moment—even as I plan for and work toward change?

Write down what you discover. Periodically, take your list out and fine-tune as needed. Decide when you will begin making concrete steps toward your goals. These are the seeds you will sow. Visualize yourself continuing to grow and learn, and do the things that matter to you and give your life meaning. This is how you will till the soil, plant your seeds, and care for them. Every day, celebrate your life—this is what you will harvest.

A happy holiday season, and a peaceful, healthy New Year to all!

Those who have endured trauma experience unique challenges in coping with life after the fact. It may feel as though no one understands the anxiety, depression, nightmares, flashbacks, and other issues characteristic of posttraumatic stress.

Because of this, people who have experienced trauma tend to avoid intimacy and closeness in relationships. While it may be difficult for a partner, family member, or friend to offer the necessary support, there are professionals who are very familiar with what it takes to heal and recover from a traumatic incident.

Clinical psychologist Robert T. Muller, PhD, wrote a book on the subject: Trauma and the Avoidant Client: Attachment-Based Strategies for Healing, which was published in 2010. As part of our continuing education web conference series, GoodTherapy.org was fortunate enough to have Dr. Muller present on “Engaging the Traumatized Client Who Avoids Closeness and Vulnerability” in April of 2011.

Recently, Dr. Muller, who is also an associate professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, shared some of his insights with us in a written interview on roughly the same topic. Specifically, he reveals the common traits associated with those who have developed avoidance-based coping strategies in response to trauma, and he discusses how to help these individuals in therapy.

GoodTherapy.org (GT): What do you think is the biggest obstacle in overcoming trauma?

Robert T. Muller (RTM): The biggest obstacle is fear. Fear of getting hurt … yet again. Fear that people who seem trustworthy aren’t. It requires great fortitude to open up and take interpersonal risks when you were hurt by the people you trusted most.

GT: Why do people with a history of trauma often have trouble in interpersonal relationships?

RTM: A client of mine once told me, “You live what you know.” When what you know is betrayal, that’s what you live.

GT: What does attachment have to do with trauma?

RTM: Humans naturally seek closeness. Trauma takes away what is most natural, making simple interpersonal contact scary and complicated.

GT: Are trauma survivors more resistant to therapy than other people who seek counseling?

RTM: No, they’re not more resistant. And they can be rewarding to work with, even inspiring. But it’s not easy. For therapists, the trick is being open to difficult painful truths: The world is often unjust, [and] good people suffer. We can’t rescue our clients from their painful histories, but we can help them gain understanding and empathy for themselves, rather than judgment and self-reproach.

GT: What kinds of therapeutic strategies work best with trauma survivors?

RTM: Relationship, relationship, relationship. With survivors of interpersonal trauma, change happens through the here-and-now relationship between client and therapist. As a therapeutic alliance develops, as the client starts to feel a connection to the clinician, this feels scary, and the person struggles as they do in all relationships: They don’t know how to trust. They may push the therapist away (because that’s easier than worrying they’ll be abandoned); they may even criticize the clinician or become angry at times. How the therapist weathers these moments in the relationship makes all the difference. If the clinician becomes defensive or critical, it’s game over. But if the therapist sees this as an opportunity, an important moment in their relationship to help the client work through the conflict between them, that’s where change really happens. The person truly learns how the world of relationships can be nonexploitative and rewarding.

GT: How can therapists engage avoidant trauma survivors in therapy?

RTM: Even clients who avoid closeness and painful feelings are in the therapist’s office for a reason. Find that reason. What’s in it for them to change? Working with them can be hard, because they’re masters at pushing people away. The trick is seeing their distancing maneuvers for what they are: fear of closeness.

GT: What do you hope therapists will take away from your new book, Trauma and the Avoidant Client: Attachment-Based Strategies for Healing?

RTM: Up to now, avoidant trauma survivors have been ignored by the field of mental health; that’s a missed opportunity. As a way of avoiding closeness, they drink, become workaholics, get addicted, overdo food or exercise, and so on. But those strategies don’t work, at least not in the long run. Ultimately, they need to experience the emotions that go along with closeness; to feel loss, sadness, pain, and vulnerability without becoming terrified of losing control or falling apart. The best tool I know is the therapeutic relationship. My book focuses on how to help clients like these by skillfully using the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for change. What they fear is closeness, but underlying that fear is a painful longing, a yearning to feel loved. And at the end of the day, therapy is about learning how to allow yourself that gift.

We all have many wounds. Broken hearts, shattered dreams, abuse, and trauma all leave battle scars that may not be outwardly apparent to others, but can cause a lifetime or even generations of experiencing the same issues, as patterns are often repeated and handed down as part of the family legacy.

The pain sustained throughout the years frequently leads us to develop defensive shields that serve to protect our vulnerable hearts from being wounded once again. And yet, this outer armor ends up not only closing us off from others, but also ultimately from the beauty and wonder of our own souls.

As a psychotherapist working from a depth perspective, I have been fascinated and privileged to have been able to witness the soul at work every day in my interactions with clients, as well as out in the world. The soul always strives to attain a state of wholeness or unity and seeks to reestablish harmony when an imbalance exists.

For example, I have frequently noticed that individuals with deep inner wounds often spend a lot of time engaged in outer pursuits in order to avoid looking within and facing the discomfort that they feel, yet at the same time they often experience a deep yearning for something more meaningful in their lives. If the gap between their inner and outer state becomes too painful to bear, they may finally feel compelled to explore their inner world through some type of creative endeavor, spiritual practice, or by entering into an empathic therapeutic relationship. This type of inner work can lead to an inner transformation that creates a more balanced perspective.

One of our fundamental needs as human beings is to be deeply heard and understood. When we experience pain in silence, we tend to feel cut off and separated from others and unable to enter into satisfying relationships. Unfortunately, as we grow up, we are taught that certain aspects of ourselves are unacceptable and unlovable, which in turn leads us to feel different from others.

We therefore start to reject those traits and identify only with the characteristics that are deemed pleasing to others in order to try to fit in. But deep down, we are aware of this inner conflict that is going on between our outer persona and our inner authentic being, which can lead us to feel unworthy of love and disconnected from ourselves and from others. In order to heal, we often require the presence of an empathic other to help us to examine more closely the inner dynamic that has been occurring.

Soul work involves shining a light inward in order to begin to integrate more and more aspects of our being that we have learned to repress. Individuals who have gone through trauma or abuse especially can end up with deep scars that lead to feelings of unworthiness, low self-esteem, and fear of true intimacy. They frequently learn to hide their true nature behind a false self as an adaptive measure designed to protect them from the trauma or abuse that they have suffered.

In so doing, they inhibit all of the characteristics that they believed to be unlovable or unwanted, but that actually make up a vital part of their essence. By turning their gaze inward, however, and exploring the aspects that they had originally rejected—often because they were deemed unacceptable or shameful—they can reconnect with their ability to love on a deep level and become more compassionate and understanding of others, as well as of themselves.

The Apaches have a legend that exemplifies this inner soul work. They believe that our spirits are born with us in the form of raw diamonds and that our goal in life is to obtain as many facets or cuts on our spiritual diamonds as possible. Each facet polishes the diamond and makes it shine a little more.

A new cut is formed every time we are faced with a problem or difficulty in our life and we use the opportunity to try to learn something new about ourselves. All of the struggles and suffering that we are faced with therefore become occasions for us to grow and fulfill our purpose for living. At death, the Apaches believe that our diamond spirit is returned to the Eye of God, to shine within the heavens for all of eternity. Each facet becomes another sparkle in the Eye of God.

In the same manner, I believe that turning our attention inward and doing our own soul work is our true purpose in life, which can lead us to experience a greater sense of wholeness and unity. By starting to look at the deeper patterns at work in the soul and how these are played out in our lives and in the world, we can begin to see our interconnectedness with all beings and things.

Each individual soul has a particular path to follow that intertwines with all of the others around it. By working to become more conscious of our own particular role and purpose in the world and how we relate to others, we can begin to heal from our sense of isolation as separate beings and come to feel that we are all truly connected on a deep soul level.

You’re deeply in love. You’ve found your life mate and are confident that your future will be wonderful. It’s time to buy the rings. Marriage hovers at your horizon, like a gorgeous sunset.

But there is one teeny problem—really teeny and really giant at the same time. Teeny because it’s about a baby. Giant because this disagreement could mean curtains for your relationship. One of you wants a baby, the other doesn’t.

“No problem,” you might say. “I just know he’ll change his mind. He’s great with his nieces and nephews. Because he loves me and knows how much I want this, he’ll say yes when the time is right.”

“Not to worry,” you might say. “She says she wants a child, but the craving will pass when her newborn niece gets older. She’s always said she didn’t think she could handle children. She works long hours and then heads for the gym. Because she loves me and gets it that don’t I want a family, she’ll change her mind.”

(Please excuse the stereotypes. Many men want children, many women don’t. This example is typical, not universal.)

Often when a couple disagrees, a compromise can solve the problem. But you can’t have half a baby or be parents in odd-numbered years and childless/childfree in even-numbered years. How can you solve the problem?

The good news is that it’s not unusual for someone to change his or her mind.

Partners who have never spent time around young children may fall in love with a friend’s child and imagine themselves as a parent for the first time. A partner who would prefer to have a child but whose work, health, or extended family demands make parenthood less attractive may agree to remain child-free.

These changes can happen , but you can’t count on them. Any possible scenarios, depending on personal histories and experiences, could emerge, and suddenly having children will simply not be an option.

The husband with teenagers from another relationship, who said he couldn’t imagine starting over with a second family, not only didn’t change his mind, but also has a chronic illness or college tuition, or a troublesome relationship with a young adult to reckon with. Not only is the answer still “No,” but now it’s in flashing neon. A baby would be even more stressful on the marriage.

The wife who raised five younger siblings because of her parents’ addiction, who had therapy that was supposed to prepare her for a family, concludes with her husband and her therapist, that her breakthroughs, though wonderful, are too fragile for the stresses of motherhood.

Or the wife who loved her husband so much that she told him, “You’ll always be enough for me,” but after her mother’s death and niece’s birth, dreams of babies every night.

Given how much you are in love, that you don’t have a crystal ball, that you don’t want your partner to be miserable, should you marry anyway?

Take with a grain of salt anyone who offers easy answers.

Some people will tell you, “It’s obvious. Don’t get married. Find a partner who feels the way you do.” But maybe this person is your best possible life partner, and giving him or her up might turn out to be an even greater loss than not getting your way on the baby question.

Others will say, “It’s obvious. The other person will come around. Everybody should want children and those who don’t are being immature. Go ahead and marry.” But many responsible people don’t have children, and there has been research that says childfree couples have some of the happiest marriages.

Still others will say, “Love conquers all. You’ll find a solution that works for both of you.” Your family and friends mean well, as do therapists. But only you can decide what’s best for the two of you. If you are ambivalent about parenthood and can imagine a happy life accepting your partner’s choice, then your marriage has a reasonable chance of working out.

Ask yourselves four questions:

1. Are we exaggerating the likelihood that we might accept the other’s choice, because we can’t stand the idea of breaking up? Is at least one of us relatively confident that he or she can say, “Yes,” to the other’s choice?
2. If my partner never changes her or his mind, and I wind up childless/ raising a child I would have preferred not to have, could I adapt to my partner’s choice?
3. Is marrying my beloved more important to me than whether or not we have a child? How might I/we make life enjoyable if I have to make the best of my partner’s choice?
4. Which would be more painful—realizing that this issue is a dealbreaker and breaking up to search for a partner who shares your parenting goals, or granting your partner’s wish?

What if you decide to go ahead and marry, without any reassuring answers to the questions above, hoping that love will find a way? Choose a specific time to check in with each other in the future about where you stand.

If you’re in your 20s, you can plan to re-evaluate in a few years, after you’re further into your relationship. If you still disagree then, see a therapist who specializes in short-term, goal-oriented treatment of fertility issues.

However, if you are in your 30s or 40s, you will need to be more proactive. See a fertility therapist before your wedding date. You may want to do some noninvasive fertility testing to find out if your fertility is waning. Try not to delay your decision for so long that if you decide to have a child, this may no longer be biologically possible.

Ways that therapy could help:

• Give you a chance to fully listen to each other, and to understand that something you especially love about your partner may actually be a reason for the other’s choice. For instance, you may love that your partner provides care to severely ill children, and realize that parenthood would mean no night or weekend respite.
• If you seem to be totally opposed, and neither of you can imagine changing your mind, your therapist can give you homework assignments to learn more about parenting or the childfree lifestyle and how your partner could make the choice more palatable to you. If one of you is going to give up your preferred choice for the sake of the relationship, it will be important to know that your spouse made every effort to accept your choice. Read books on the topic, attend workshops, and consider interviewing friends on what they like or don’t like about parenting or being childfree.
• Help you sort out whether you are totally opposed to your partner’s wish or whether changing your mind might be possible.

Other Tips for Resolving the Conflict with Your Partner

Use therapy strategically. Make sure your therapist respects the childfree choice as well as parenting. Don’t be afraid to ask about this before making an appointment. You also want someone who is skilled in short-term, goal-directed couples work, has experience with fertility decisions, and can give you food for thought and homework assignments.

With this skill set, your therapist can offer you the best use of your time and money. It may make sense, after a few weekly visits to get some momentum, to spread out your visits so you have time for reflection and homework.

Speak up if you think the therapist is getting sidetracked by your past. While it may be relevant to discuss your family history, you need therapy that focuses on the tasks at hand: couples communication and decision-making. If you, your partner, or your therapist thinks you are too overcome with emotion related to your childhood or a condition such as depression, get a referral to a different therapist and work with that person individually.

Commit to working together, especially if you decide to get married anyway before finding resolution. Be aware that you are giving higher priority to the relationship than to whether you get what you want regarding a child, and work toward a future solution.

Think “child,” not “children.” Having one child can be a great solution for people who want to experience the joys of parenting without being confined to their homes for years, or having to deal with sibling rivalry. Despite stereotypes, children in one-child families are happier than the rest of us, according to extensive research.

Ask your partner for ideas about how your solution could be made more palatable. Some women agree to take on the major responsibility for parenting–even if this compromises a couple’s nonsexist ethics. Many women see this as a choice to have the pleasures of motherhood rather than absolute social justice.

Some men who persuade their wives to forego motherhood are appropriately gracious about making other sacrifices: “We’ll move to Florence for you to study art for two years, even though it will be expensive.” Or, “I won’t complain if you want to spend Saturdays with your nieces and nephews.”

Treat your partner as the person you love, in all his/her uniqueness, which may include a different take on parenthood. He or she is more than an obstacle to your parenting or childfree goal. Theologian Martin Buber distinguished between “I-Thou” relationships—in which we experience and honor the person in their fullness of being—and “I-It” relationships, in which the other person exists in our minds only as a facilitator of or an obstacle to our goals. The “I-Thou,” qualities of listening and respect are the essence of loving each other. They will bring pleasure and meaning to your life as parents or a family of two.

Many people believe that when experiences are too painful or difficult to face, they end up tucked into the unseen corners of the unconscious in the form of repressed memories. The presence of hidden truths in the psyche may then manifest in myriad ways in waking life: panic attacks, nightmares, anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction, and issues with self-esteem, to name a few.

Sexual trauma, in particular, is viewed by a number of therapists as being especially susceptible to repression (Loftus, 1993). The memories may remain locked away for years before surfacing, which typically occurs in a therapeutic setting.

Several people, mainly women, who recollect memories of abuse 10, 20, 30, or more years after the abuse occurred have sued the perpetrators in court for damages to physical and psychological well-being. Many have won.

However, over the past few decades, the notion of repressed memories has sparked a great deal of controversy in the mental health field. This became especially heated during what became known as the “memory wars” of the 1990s.

Clinical psychologists and therapists who have witnessed adult clients remembering repressed experiences of childhood abuse argue that the memories are real, vivid, detailed, and reliable. Researchers tend to be more hesitant to accept the concept of repression as fact due to the lack of scientific evidence in support of it (Association for Psychological Science, 2013).

Findings reported recently in Psychological Science suggest that this controversy remains just as prevalent today, and that skepticism has actually increased with time. One of the researchers, Lawrence Patihis of the University of California, Irvine, said in a press release issued by the Association for Psychological Science (2013), “Whether repressed memories are accurate or not, and whether they should be pursued by therapists, or not, is probably the single most practically important topic in clinical psychology since the days of Freud and the hypnotists who came before him.”

The study conducted by Patihis and colleagues involved an online survey of practicing clinicians, psychotherapists, research psychologists, and alternative therapists. Their responses revealed that though skepticism regarding repressed memories has increased in the past 20 years for “mainstream psychotherapists and clinical psychologists,” approximately 60 to 80% of the clinicians, psychoanalysts, and therapists who responded to the survey believe that memories of trauma are often repressed and can be retrieved in therapy.

They also gathered data that shows the widespread acceptance of repressed memories as real among the general public. On the other hand, less than 30% of research psychologists believe in the validity of repressed memories.

Repressed-Memory Testimony Fuels Controversy

One of the primary concerns of skeptics is that “repressed-memory testimony” may be used in court to indict someone. Being able to testify against long-ago abusers has been known to aide in the healing and recovery of many who endured childhood sexual or physical abuse. However, there have been instances where an adult child accuses parents of abuse years after the fact and the parents vehemently deny the accusation; this inevitably tears apart familial relationships and leaves the accused feeling victimized (Loftus, 1993).

Repressed-memory testimony has also been used to solve unsolved cases of murder, as in the 1990 case of Eileen Franklin, who experienced sudden and vivid repressed memory recall as a 29-year-old mother that revealed a dark secret: When she was 8 years old, her father had raped and murdered her best friend; Eileen had been witness to the crime, and her father had threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone. Her then 51-year-old father George was tried in court and convicted largely based on the evidence provided via Eileen’s memories, although corroborating evidence gathered at the time of the crime was also taken into consideration.

The disturbing number of cases related to repressed experiences of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests and other private group leaders has also stirred much dialogue over whether memories that surface years after an alleged incident occurred should be used as evidence in legal cases. As recently as October 2013, Governor Jerry Brown of California vetoed legislation that would have allowed more victims of childhood sexual abuse to take action against the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, and other private organizations (Miller).

For those who experienced the abuse, being able to seek justice for the wrongs committed against them is essential to their ability to move on and recover. Many of them experience years of psychological torment prior to remembering in full the abuse that took place, and their supporters believe lawsuits should be an option regardless of how long it takes for those memories to appear (Miller, 2013).

Considering that the truth of a resurfaced memory is often nearly impossible to prove with scientific evidence, this may be a situation where researchers should defer to the practicing psychologists and therapists who have witnessed countless cases of repressed recall in action, as well as the people who attest to their validity firsthand and experience intuitive healing as a result.

References:

1. Association for Psychological Science. (2013, December 13). Scientists and practitioners don’t see eye to eye on repressed memory. [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/scientists-and-practitioners-dont-see-eye-to-eye-on-repressed-memory.html
2. Miller, J. (2013, October 13). SEX ABUSE: Governor vetoes bill to allow more victims. The Press-Enterprise. Retrieved from http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jim-miller-headlines/20131013-sex-abuse-governor-vetoes-bill-to-allow-more-victims.ece
3. Loftus, E. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48, 518-537. Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/lof93.htm

Is it so strange to want to chronicle and capture your changing visage through the years in the form of artistically altered photographs? There has been a lot of conversation in recent months surrounding people who obsessively photograph themselves and post those pictures online for all to see, otherwise known as the selfie trend.

Even we jumped on the bandwagon of speculation about what’s really going on with this phenomenon. The self is fascinating; after all, it’s who you are. We seek a deeper understanding of this inward being in a variety of ways: journaling, creative expression, conversation, counseling, and, yes, the self-portrait.

Throughout history, artists have devoted themselves to this eye-catching craft of self-understanding. Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo are just two examples of the myriad artists who became renowned for their ability to capture the self in compelling portraits.

From 1886 to 1889, Van Gogh painted over 30 canvases of himself, and Kahlo, who began her work in self-portraiture while recovering from a debilitating accident in a full body cast, produced 55. She is quoted as having said, “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best” (Frida Kahlo Foundation, 2002–2013).

These days, though the painted canvas is still prevalent in self-portraiture, the artistic rendering of the self via photograph is being snapped and shared by the millions—on Facebook, on Instagram, and in the professional photography world, as well. Depression, grief, loss, injury, and navigating the rises and falls of the human journey have inspired countless works of photographic art involving the photographer as subject. Following are just a few examples of this self-centered form of modern artistry—and healing.

Self-Portrait for Depression

[fat_widget_left]One man, 20-year-old Christian Hopkins, uses photography as a way of dealing with depression. His self-portraits include surreal images of several hands being trapped inside his skin, wings made with fragile materials protruding from his shoulder blades, one showing his left wing broken and in pieces, the other very sparse but intact.

He is also shown with a fabricated slit through the throat made of a zipper with strands of black yarn mimicking blood. The photos are haunting, but most importantly, Hopkins says they help him process the complicated emotional experience of his bouts of depression.

Self-Portrait for Feeling Powerless and Stuck

Ben Zank, a New York-based photographer, chronicles his feelings of “being powerless, stuck, being free again, etc.” in a series of self-portraits featuring natural elements colliding with the confining aspects of human existence. In one of these, he is shown lying face down on a paved road with the two yellow stripes running directly over his head; in another, he is trapped between two icy rocks, struggling to break free.

He also photographed himself with his head wrapped in twine and tied to a tree, as well as with lengths of twine tied around his fingers and anchored to the ground. Both of these scenes seem to reflect the experience of being stuck.

Self-Portrait for Debilitating Injuries

Following repeated knee injuries, former-dancer-turned-photographer Ingrid Endel photographs herself in stunning dance-oriented poses. The Australian artist creates surreal imagery that beautifully captures the sense of loss associated with no longer being able to perform as a dancer, as well as the joy of discovering another art form through which she can express herself.

The photographs show her body in a variety of outdoor scenes: lifting off the ground with legs wrapped in vines; leaning (or falling?) backward in a dancer’s pose with electric red cords protruding in all directions from her chest; and being enveloped in cocoon-like cobwebs while contorted on the forest floor.

Endel includes photographs of her moments of stillness in which she appears to be accepting and embracing her body as-is; one in particular shows her looking perfectly content while engaged in a stretching pose in the middle of a body of water.

Self-Portrait for Personal Change and Transformation

Another way to use the self-portrait is to process normal, yet significant, changes in life, which can become stressful if not handled healthfully. One woman, Sophia Starzenski, a photographer based in Buenos Aires, took photos of her near-naked body as she moved through pregnancy.

The photographs reveal her steadily expanding belly throughout the nine months of being with child, and the final shot shows her with two-month-old babe in arms. By capturing the raw beauty of this commonplace transformation, Starzenski presents the changing female body as a work of art—something to be celebrated and shared rather than hidden and shamed.

Self-Portrait for Illness and Grief

Still others use the self-portrait as a means of coping with insurmountable changes in the lives of their loved ones, which inevitably affect them, too. When his wife Jennifer was diagnosed with breast cancer, Angelo Merendino chose to document the experience through photographs taken mainly of his wife, although he appears in a few of them.

The series starts with the couple looking healthy and happy, drinking while sitting on a front stoop, and then lying in bed together with serene smiles and an intimate embrace. The photographs grow increasingly bleak, however, as Merendino captures his wife’s physical deterioration and eventual death on camera.

Though they depict illness, grief, and loss, the photographs also show the beauty of family coming together in trying times and of final moments treasured and savored. Following his wife’s passing, Merendino published a book of the images, The Battle We Didn’t Choose: My Wife’s Fight with Breast Cancer, and went on to start a non-profit called The Love You Share (theloveyoushare.org) as a means of providing financial assistance to women battling breast cancer.

The Tutu Project (thetutuproject.com), which “began in 2003 as a lark,” is another instance of a man using self-portrait photography to deal with life in general and eventually, with his wife’s breast cancer. When his wife Linda was diagnosed in 2006, Bob Carey began taking his ongoing photographs of himself wearing only a pink tutu to a new level. As a means of alleviating his own emotional distress and lifting Linda’s spirits, he traveled the United States—and Italy—snapping pink tutu photos in various places.

Their story inspired a video created by Deutsche Telekom in Germany (below); in it, Linda says, “It just makes me laugh, to see my husband dancing around in a pink tutu. It helps me be positive. The more I laugh, the better I feel.”

To help support other women who are in need of funds beyond what insurance provides as they navigate the breast cancer experience, the couple established The Carey Foundation in 2012 (careyfoundation.org), and they continue to spread the simple pleasure of the pink tutu in Ballerina, a hardcover collection of Bob’s self-portraits and the stories behind them.

PhotoTherapy: How Self-Portraits Heal

Judy Weiser, director of the PhotoTherapy Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as psychologist, art therapist, and author, has spent over 35 years exploring, developing, and implementing “PhotoTherapy” techniques. On the PhotoTherapy Centre’s website (phototherapy-centre.com), Weiser details extensively the therapeutic benefits of photography in its various forms.

Regarding the self-portrait as a mode of healing, she says, “Since issues connected to self-esteem, self-knowledge, self-confidence, and self-acceptance lie at the core of most clients’ problems, being able to see themselves for themselves, unfiltered by the input or feedback of others, can be a very powerful and therapeutically beneficial encounter.” She goes on to explain how this in-depth confrontation and exploration of the self through photography is known to catalyze “deep process work in therapy situations.”

Though the PhotoTherapy Centre now exists primarily as an archival collection of online information and resources, Weiser still provides training opportunities for mental health professionals in the techniques of PhotoTherapy, as well as social media support and guidance via the Centre’s Facebook group.

References:

1. Frida Kahlo Foundation. (2002–2013). Frida Kahlo biography. Retrieved from http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html
2. Weiser, J. (2001–2013). The techniques of PhotoTherapy. Retrieved from http://www.phototherapy-centre.com/self_portraits.htm