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More Common Questions

January 7, 2012 by Ann

I’m afraid of not liking my parents if I find out they hurt me when I was little.  I want to be able to love them and be close to them.  Maybe it isn’t worth finding out what happened to me, or is it?

That is a real and serious question.  Would you rather live with the truth or with your hoped for fantasy? Would you rather have your whole self, or your relationship with your parents?  I suggest you look at what troubles you in life and decide how much you want that to be different.

 

So what in me probably has to do with past childhood abuse? No one is perfect, what can I assume about myself is attributable to childhood abuse? 

Low self esteem, relationship dissatisfaction, trust issues, lack of self actualization, unnecessary fears and anxiety,  problems with your sexuality, to list only the most obvious.  I have never known a person who has worked on their childhood abuse be sorry they did.

 

Posted in Common Questions, How Therapy Helps, Incest, New, Psychotherapy, Self Concept, Trauma | Leave a Comment »

Recovering from Childhood Sexual Abuse

January 7, 2012 by Ann

Recovering from Childhood Sexual  Abuse

Common Beginning Questions:

I think I might have been abused but I’m not sure. Does that mean that I probably was?

Not necessarily, but maybe.  In a way, your job is the same whether you were abused or not:  I would recommend you get into therapy (with someone who has experience with survivors of sexual abuse and who clicks with you) and do the therapeutic work about what ever is interfering with you having the life you want now.  If there was any abuse, and you are ready to deal with it, it will come up into your conscious awareness and you can address it.

What does it mean to be ready to work on abuse? 

Readiness has to do with being in the right place, internally and externally,  so that when you find out the reality of your own abuse,  you will profit from the therapy work and not be unduly  beaten down by it.   Abuse that you had to repress (forget happened) is likely the experience from your childhood that was the most destructive to your self-esteem.  Being ready to deal with this and having it be a healing experience takes readiness.  Left to your own devices, you  very probably won’t remember anything you aren’t ready to deal with.  This is why I don’t use hypnosis with my clients who want to remember what happened to them.

So being “ready” to work on abuse means that  the relationship you have with yourself  ( your internal environment)  is strong:  Your resources inside are lined up PRO YOU. You spend more time supporting and validating yourself than putting your self down.   No matter what else,  in the end you basically like yourself, enough anyway, so that you can help yourself through this process.  You can remember painful things that happened to you and heal from them rather than being over whelmed or  becoming self-destructive.   The good news is that once you are through this work,  you will like yourself,  love yourself,  more than you ever have.

What is this “outer environment” part?   This  could be about relationships and if you have good support, for example  being  in a good relationship or out of a bad one. It can be about finances and when you have the money for baby sitters or transportation or the therapist’s fees.  It is probably also about timing so that you can afford an occasional day off  when you truly need a mental health day.  Therefore  it’s probably not when you are a single parent of young children and working part time and going to school at night.

Posted in Common Questions, How Therapy Helps, Incest, New | Leave a Comment »

Everybody Needs Their Version of A Horse (Tongue in Cheek Serious Advise)

October 8, 2011 by Ann

Despite the wisdom of Freud,  (who said adult’s lives are about love and work)  I propose  that life for adults is really about Joy and Passion, or ought to be.*

That’s why I say everyone needs their version of a horse.

I have had horses, one or two,  in my life ever since I was in fourth grade.  They have brought me reliable joy, if there is such a thing.  This is not to  diminish the importance of my  partner, my family and good friends.  My partner and I  joke that,  as regards each other,  we are ” necessary but not sufficient.”  To have a full  life  don’t forget to include passion.  ( I don’t mean sexual passion here.)

I am passionate about my horse and riding dressage.  I get high nearly every ride, and get terribly excited about learning something new with him.  I miss him when I don’t see him,  and I love him dearly.

You need to be doing something you are passionate about. Don’t wait for your kids to grow up, or for there to be more money, or hold back because you will look like a beginner and your 45 already.  Go find a way and get into your passion now.    Live your life with joy and passion in it. Your own, very personal, way .

If you don’t know what it is you are passionate about, or believe you can’t do it, therapy could very likely help.  Therapy is about preparing for good living, after all.

*OK, you do need satisfying love and work .

Posted in Development, How Therapy Helps, New, Psychotherapy, Self Concept | Leave a Comment »

The Bottom Line on Therapy

June 19, 2010 by Ann

So what is the purpose of therapy, anyway? What is it supposed to do for you?

Therapy gives you choice. It allows you to have choices instead of  automatically thinking/feeling /acting  from what your history taught you  – about yourself, other people and the world.

Your history, in this case, means your childhood.  During those early years you learned by experience what the world is like, what  to expect from other people,  and who you are.  For an example: for the child who was expected to mommy’s little helper and take care of her younger siblings learned that to be a good person was to figure out what someone else needed and do it for them. Maybe she learned to put her own preferences  and needs in the background, to never complain or think of herself first,  to think of herself as valuable only  in the ways she  could serve others.
So she grows up to be a what we all call a caretaker, giving “selflessly”, and  depressive without knowing why.  After all, everyone she knows says she is wonderful!  She finally decides to get her own career, and, you guessed it, she becomes a nurse. More depression.

She comes to therapy and discovers what she thought were her own choices where based on what she learned as a child  and decides to throw it all off.  Her kids do more chores around the house. Her husband comes into therapy with her because she is fed up of his self centered ways and expectations that she be his maid, lover on demand, and the one who takes care of the kids. She gets a new hair cut, loses weight,  quits the subservient good girl role at work and becomes an administrator…..you get the picture.

Therapy teaches you how your childhood effected you and gives you choices about what you want to do, who you want to be.  How does it do that? Look around at other blog entries, and if you have specific questions, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to explain.

Posted in How Therapy Helps, Psychotherapy | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Roots of Self-Esteem

April 4, 2010 by Ann

Positive self-esteem is developed in many ways in children.  If your parents value you and respect your feelings, thoughts, preferences and proclivities, while challenging you  with age appropriate, achievable goals – you will likely develop good self-esteem. This positive  sense of who you are  becomes a natural part of yourself – something you take for granted and something that holds up against life’s disappointments and failures.

Negative self-esteem can develop in a myriad of ways.  It is pretty obvious, if you have been reading much of my blog, how being emotionally, physically or sexually abused teaches the child that they are  worthless, and  that  certainly will grow  roots of poor self-esteem.  One of my Stories for the Unconscious “The Good Prince” illustrates how negative self-esteem can develop in a person  who is, by all outward measures, very loved and given lots of positive regard by his parents; but wasn’t allowed to find his true self.

I have seen over the years in my practice this exact problem in some adults of wealthy parents. In this situations,  the parents wanted control of their child and didn’t allow the child to investigate his /her own proclivities and learn his /her own strengths and talents. These parents have many values and directives that they press upon their child. As the child grows older,  the parents continue to hold the child hostage by the magic of their  money and the threat of taking it away.  Other parents  control the child by dint of their own personality – and use love, approval or fear as the currency of their control.  Most children are influenced  to some degrees in this way in that we take on our parents values. (” Of course they expected me to go to college, they talked about it ever since I can remember” – can be a positive value and directive.  Oops! I guess my values are showing here!)

The difficulty lies for kids whose parents take so much control that their child, in order to win acceptance , pushes the best parts of themselves “underground” where the parents can’t see it. The abused child does this so the parents won’t damage that part of them.  For example, the boy who has talent as a writer and whose father would surely ridicule and beat him so he won’t embarrass Dad by being a sissy. This kid could shove that talent so deep inside himself that he wouldn’t  even know he can write well until he takes a college course in creative writing.   The Good Prince put his real self underground in response to the enormous pressures of  inheriting the Crown.

Posted in Self Concept | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Therapist’s Commitment

March 23, 2010 by Ann

Lately I’ve been thinking about this work, and what the therapist owes her/ his clients.  Therapists often say that they don’t want to be doing all the work, (meaning that the client must apply him or herself) or nothing useful will really happen.  Very true.

However, the therapist must also be working, and working hard, so that when the client leaves every session they take with them something new to ‘chew on’, a new awareness or an insight  they didn’t have before. Perhaps  they have gone through an emotional experience that has created a self-understanding. This is often more useful than then the intellectual putting together of a new concept. For example, crying teaches how significant something is (or was) in a deeper way than thinking about it.

The therapist  needs to connect things that their client said in a previous session to what they are saying today, or show them things about themselves they hadn’t recognized.  Good therapists pick up on things that other people  wouldn’t notice.  Then there is the timing and  presenting of things, so that the client can take in what the therapist is saying.   Skill, experience and intuition come in here. Therapists have to stay on top of their own reactions to things, so they know when something from their own life is influencing the way they feel and react to their client. Having different therapeutic approaches to the same issue is needed – the therapist needs to adopt to their client, not the other way around!

I guess I’m saying some people are more talented about this work than others — and  don’t settle.

Posted in New, Psychotherapy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

What questons would you like answered on the Blog?

November 23, 2009 by Ann

I would like to know what questions you have, what you would like to ask about, or have clarified. It can be anything about therapy, therapists, problems you have had with the mental health system, financial issues, what ever you would like to get more information about.

Posted in New | 4 Comments »

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