If your parents were unable to accept their own emotional vulnerabilities, then they certainly were unable to hold and honor your difficult feelings. The result of this emotional disconnect is that we become cut-off from our true selves. This break from truth develops in children because the reality of the emotional disconnect is too terrifying to consciously grasp. For children, nothing is more important than a sense of security and safety. Without the aforementioned, we cannot grow and master our inner and outer worlds.
We learn to become strategic in order to gain the love of others.
In order to gain this sense of security we learn to become strategic in order to gain the love of our early caretakers. Rather than be authentic, we give our parents what we think they want in order to gain adoration and love. This way of relating extends ultimately to friends, colleagues, and of course our life-partners. This way of being in relationship leads to deep states of despair and loneliness, as we hide our true selves in the service of retaining and maintaining the love of others.
The deepest wound a child can experience is not being emotionally held and mirrored.
From this perspective, the deepest wound a child can experience is when his parent doesn’t give him the experience that he or she feels what he is feeling. It’s not just about being empathic; it’s a deeper visceral validation of emotional experience. This lack of experiential validation is deeply wounding to a child, and triggers the child to ultimately become disconnected from his emotional world. This disconnect takes a lot of psychic energy, as the emotional body is the primary way one experiences himself and others. For some, this means self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, food, or other addictions.
Engage in this process and drop old patterns that have been holding you back.
In this work, the therapist and client engage in a very specific process to clarify the emotional field and create new social boundaries around relating with others. The results of this work are powerful, as the client begins to actively engage in practicing the work in their personal lives, a new understanding of the self and others develops.
For more information, please contact Dr. Steinberg at 215-253-4473.