Finding a balance between internalising that which is outside of us vs. externalising that which is inside of us is built into the fabric of our lives from the moment we come into the world. As infants, we need to take in both physical and emotional nourishment, and we also need to rid ourselves of toxins, waste, excess, tensions, etc. In the best of cases, we stay in homeostatic balance, with the help of attuned caregivers, allowing our needs for both nurture and nourishment to ebb and flow easily with our needs for independence, evacuation, and tension release.

The pulls to produce, to move outward, to create something and offer it to the world…as well as to get rid of things, versus the quieter, inward pulls to rest, replenish, and germinate what’s inside of us, grow together with us into adulthood, taking on more mature and sophisticated forms of expression as we integrate our needs for both autonomy and self expression with our need for connection in ways that are in sync with the realities we find ourselves in.

Some of us live more in one kind of mode than another; this might correlate with one’s attachment style, or simply with each person’s brain’s innate preferences for a more logical vs. intuitive mode, for doing vs being, or for doing things ourselves vs relying on others.

Those of us more comfortable in action—doing, producing, taking initiative—tend to see progress as linear, where A leads to B leads to C. And those of us more at ease with just “being”, with allowing things to germinate quietly, tend to trust things will grow in their own time and own way.

These themes seem to also overlap with the concepts of contraction versus expansion. Those moments when everything feels tight—when we’re stuck, blocked, or just empty inside; that’s contraction. It can feel like nothing is happening, like everything is shut down. But if we sit with it, which is easier for some of us than for others- if we manage to stay in that space without forcing our way out (or trying to anyway because that never seems to actually work!)—it often leads to a kind of release, a natural expansion. Suddenly, things start to open up again. We breathe out. We move outward. At least that happens for me. And yet, some of us really struggle to sit in the contraction. We think, If I’m quiet, empty, or blocked, something’s wrong. But sometimes, that’s where the real growth happens—under the surface, in the stillness.

Others find expansion harder. Stepping into the light, putting something out there, externalizing what’s inside—it feels exposing, vulnerable. Safer, maybe, to stay inward, to keep things in the germination phase.

The truth is, we need both. Life asks us to move between these opposites. To trust the quiet, even when it feels like nothing’s happening, and to trust the movement when it’s time to step forward.

The more I sit with this, the more I realize that balance isn’t about perfectly splitting our time between giving and receiving, contraction and expansion. It’s about learning to feel at home in both. A flexible personality—one that can shift between action and stillness, between linear and non-linear ways of being—is often a healthier, more grounded one.

But it’s not easy. When we cling too tightly to one mode—when we have to always be producing, or we refuse to step into the light—we lose access to the other side of ourselves. And that’s when we start to feel stuck or unbalanced.

So I’ve been asking myself—and maybe you can ask yourself too—where do I feel most at home? Is it in the quiet, receptive space, or is it in the action, the outward movement? What’s it like to sit in the discomfort of contraction without rushing to get out of it? And what’s it like to let myself expand, to show up and share what’s inside of me, even when it feels risky? Can I flow between 2 modes? I know it’s something I’ve been working on! What about you?

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Anxiety, relationship struggles, and introspection are some common denominators of what Mirel Goldstein is seeing in her practice as people find themselves spending more time with their family members and more time with themselves.

Mirel Goldstein also discusses forgiveness, letting go, and some thoughts about parenting in this video interview.

Hope you enjoy watching!

P.S. You may also want to hear my tips for living with someone abusive during Covid-19

The post What My Clients are Experiencing during Covid-19 appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Do emotions tend to get out of control in your family?

Do people in your home trigger or escalate each other just when they both need the most support?

Does a family member yell at you when you’re hurt or scared?

You might need to learn how to break cycles of emotional contagion if you or a family member has a sensitive nervous system.

Here’s how to understand what’s going on and what to do about it:

The post Avoiding Emotional Contagion During the Holidays- Goldstein Therapy-Clifton, NJ appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Use These 3 Parenting Skills: Your Kids will Love Themselves (and You) For it

Self-esteem.

Is it something you can foster in your children or is self-esteem elusive and capricious, granted to some while others flounder in a haze of insecurity and self-doubt? Here’s the good news, you can shape your child’s sense of self so they mature into an adult whose self-esteem is hardy and healthy.

How is it done, you wonder. When caring for your infant, you know exactly how to meet their physical needs – a warm bottle or breast, clean diapers, and lots of napping. As your child grows, they continue to need the basics like food, clothing, shelter and more. But in addition to physical needs, children are also born with emotional needs and when those emotional needs are met, their self-esteem flourishes. What are these emotional needs and what does meeting these needs look like?

The self-esteem blueprint. 

Emotionally, your child needs three essential supports from you.

•   They need you to admire them (isn’t that why children are so cute?).
•   They need you to teach them how to regulate their emotions and behaviors.
•   They need you to give them a feeling of belonging.

When you do these three things consistently and repeatedly, your child will grow up to have strong self-esteem and will find purpose and meaning in life.

You might be asking “what exactly is self-esteem anyway?”. Here’s the answer. Self-esteem is a realistic respect for, or favorable impression of yourself.

People with self-esteem face life’s ups and downs with resilience.  When faced with a dilemma or difficult matter, they are confident that they can cope with it. This confidence comes from experiencing a symbiotic and supportive relationship with you, their parent. Self-esteem includes knowing that if you do become overwhelmed then there will be someone to whom you can turn to for help.

A child’s experience of an affirming relationship with their parent establishes a deeply rooted belief in their own value and competency. This belief finds expression through their inner voice, which, like soft background music, is often imperceptible.  This inner voice loops favorable messages in your child’s mind, using a pleasant tone of voice. It is compassionate and respectful while tolerant of imperfection.

Where does this inner voice come from?  It comes from the way you speak to your child.

Let’s take a close look at the essential supports your child needs to foster self- esteem.

Admiration

Six-year-old Jackson Baker was busy with his playmobile while his younger brother Oliver, sat nearby watching. Jackson looked at the picture displayed on the box, then turned to Oliver and said, “Look, Oliver! Once I put these last two pieces together the policeman will be able to ride his motorcycle. You wanna be the bad guy and I’ll chase you on my motorcycle?

 “Here,” he said, handing Oliver a car, “The bad guy can drive this to get away from me.”

Oliver was thrilled that his older brother included him in his game. Mrs. Jackson was in the room and watched this exchange.

“Jackson, you made Oliver feel so good by including him in your game. What a nice thing for a big brother to do. Looks like you’re having so much fun. I just love it when you guys have fun together.” said their mom. 

When Mrs. Baker commented to Jackson about her observations, it was as if she held a mirror in her hand and passed it to Jackson saying, “Look, this is you.” Jackson saw himself the way his mother saw him, and he felt admired. He also felt loved and connected to her. Admiration is a building block of self-esteem.

If Mrs. Baker mirrors Jackson regularly and often, she reinforces his feelings of being admired, connected to and enjoyed by his mom, thereby building his sense of self. Through expressing her observations and modeling supportive dialogue, Jackson’s mother is also molding his inner voice to be one that is approving and accepting. Being approving and accepting of himself will be as much a part of his identity as his own name is.

Emotional Regulation

We need to regulate our emotions so that when we interact with others we can do so with flexibility and self-control. (For some tips on how to help your child develop a secure attachment style, which often goes together with emotion regulation, check out this post: Parenting and Secure Attachment)

A typical day includes stressful events (both positive and negative) that produce strong feelings such as frustration, confusion, surprise or enthusiasm. When this happens to children, they depend on their parents to soothe and comfort them so that they can recover and continue their activities. The classic example would be the new walking toddler who runs, loses their balance, and scrapes their knee while falling. Their nearby parent scoops them up, rocks them and murmurs soothing words in their ear. Mom inspects their knee, then plants a kiss on the boo boo. Next, Mom redirects her child by giving them a toy to play with. All is right in the world again. When this two-step interaction (soothing and redirecting) gets repeated throughout all their developmental stages, children learn how to regulate their emotions by self-soothing and then re-channeling their energy.

Emma Cooper loved swimming. She felt awkward and felt excluded when she realized that all her friends were swimming at the deep end of the pool. She had to remain in the shallow with the younger kids because she hadn’t passed the deep-water test yet. One afternoon, Emma told her mom that she wasn’t going to the pool that day. Mrs. Cooper realized something was bothering Emma and approached her to talk about it.

“Emma, you love the pool, don’t you? You’re like a fish,” she said.

“I’m not a fish. I can’t even swim yet,” Emma said in a moping and derisive voice.

“Oh, Emma,” began her mother, “Having your arm in a cast last summer really set you back, didn’t it? You would have been a deep-water swimmer by now if you hadn’t missed all those lessons. You’re great in the water but you have a lot of catching up to do. You’ll probably advance really quickly this year and you’ll be a deep-water swimmer before you know it. You’ll be in the pool with all your friends real soon …Your next lesson is tomorrow, so in the meantime, why don’t you ride your bike over to Aunt Mia’s house and pick up the goggles you left there?”

Mrs. Cooper sensed that Emma was in a bad mood and initiated a conversation to find out what was bothering her. When Mrs. Cooper put things in perspective it soothed Emma and helped her regulate her emotions about feeling left out. Mrs. Cooper also helped Emma label her feelings. Once she sensed that Emma felt understood and comforted, Mrs. Cooper redirected Emma’s behavior.

When this type of parent-child interaction is repeated often and consistently, Emma will grow up knowing how to soothe, comfort and redirect herself. She will learn to speak to herself compassionately, without criticism or judgment.  The positive outcome of the conversation she and her mother had also implanted the idea that it’s safe and helpful to turn to others when facing difficult feelings. Later in life, when she is feeling unusually distressed and is unable to soothe herself, she’ll know she can reliably turn to someone else for help.

Belonging

Imagine being a volunteer who works at an animal shelter. The feelings you share about animals create a kinship between you and the other volunteers. It’s a type of twinship, a sameness – I am like you and you are like me.

On the other hand, when you feel different to those around you, you might feel alienated or misunderstood. Similarly, children need to feel a sameness with their parent. They need to feel that they and you are the same. This creates a sense of belonging. (Later, they will learn to differentiate from you but first they need to feel secure in their sameness with you.)

If your child needs to feel the same as you, then what would make them feel different?

Harsh and unyielding criticism.

Liam Murphy is in third grade but continues to have a hard time sitting still. Some part of his body is in motion no matter what activity he is involved in. When he sits at the dinner table, he sits at the corner of his seat and tilts the chair on its legs. Eventually, he or the chair tumble to the floor. Sometimes, both.

 “What is the matter with you, Liam? Why can’t you just sit still? I keep telling you to stop that,” his mother snaps at him.

Liam often taps his fingers, hums, or walks around swinging his arms widely, unaware of where his body is in space. Often, he knocks over his glass of water, or worse, his sister’s.  In response, he hears Mom repeat her caustic question several times a week, “What’s the matter with you. Liam?”

In addition to her critical remarks, Mrs. Murphy also reflects a skewed image to Liam, like the distorted images we see when looking into a circus mirror. This mocking is the antithesis of being admired.

Another point of importance is Mrs. Murphy’s inability to regulate her own emotions about Liam’s behavior. She is frustrated, impatient and cruel in her assessment of him. Liam observes his mother model emotional dysregulation, certainly not a method through which he could learn to regulate his own emotions.

The oft repeated derision will lead Liam to conclude that there is something wrong with him. He will feel different to his mother (and family). Mrs. Murphy’s abrasive words about his behavior alienates him. She might have joined Liam by demonstrating their sameness i.e. “We all struggle with something. Hey, no matter how carefully I follow directions, I often get lost.” Instead, she damages their relationship through her criticism and makes him feel different,

It would be safe to predict that Liam will look elsewhere for admiration. He will struggle with regulating his emotions and might turn to substances to numb his feelings. He will try to find a sense of belonging with others, perhaps undesirable others.

Unfortunately, Liam will develop a harsh inner critic that will blame him whenever something in his life goes wrong. This inner critic will be relentless and corrosive.

Had Mrs. Murphy supported Liam, the dialogue might have gone this way.

“Liam, it’s hard for you sit neat on your seat, huh?” she asks with a twinkle in her eye and a lilt in her voice, as they’re driving to the store.

“Can you tell me what if feels like for you when you need to sit at the table?” she asks. 

“I don’t know,” says Liam.

“Hmmm. Do you think standing would help? Or maybe I could get you one of those cushions for your chair like you have in school. Let’s try to come up with a good idea because I know it’s hard for you and I want to make it easier. Let’s figure this out together. By the way, I noticed that you wiped up the spill without me having to ask. That was helpful.”

By interacting with him, Mrs. Murphy shows Liam that his behavior and his identity are not the same. The mirror she shows him reflects a child who is cooperative and helpful. It does not highlight his deficits. Doing this will also give Liam the idea that he has agency over himself and he can find solutions.

A Second Chance

Using this blueprint will help you develop your child’s self-esteem. But what about Mrs. Murphy? She needs some help and support too, don’t you think?

How about yourself? If you haven’t received the right kind of messages from your own parents, you might be suffering with a harsh inner critic too.

Here’s some more good news. It’s not your fault and it can be reversed. Your brain can be rewired and the harsh and critical messages you hear can be overridden. You don’t need an electrician to do the rewire, but you might very well need a therapist.

Changing might seem impossibly hard. That’s okay. You know what they say about Rome, right? You don’t have to change in one day, or one month or even in one year. Change is a process and transformation occurs over time. It might feel overwhelming at first and that’s perfectly normal.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not alone and you don’t have to do it alone. I see you and I see the potential in you. Here, look, want to see for yourself?

About the Author:

Michelle Halle is a licensed clinical social worker with a therapy practice in Lakewood, New Jersey. She helps her patients reduce their anxiety, heal from traumatic relationships, and live life more fully. She is trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples.  As a former school social worker, she has extensive experience helping parents of special needs children face their unique challenges. Michelle helps women who were emotionally neglected recover and meet their children’s emotional needs. Her website is: https://www.michellehalle.com/

The post 3 Secrets to Your Child’s Self Esteem- Goldstein Therapy- Clifton, NJ appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Or perhaps this is familiar to you: You keep getting blamed for something that you’re only doing because the other person’s behavior seems to leave you no choice but to react a certain way.

Some people seem to bring out the worst in us and we find ourselves showing a side of ourselves that seems like it’s not really who we are.

All of these experiences probably have something to do with a projective pressure going on in the relationship. Projection refers to seeing something in others that is really part of ourselves or our ideas about what will and should happen in relationships. Projective pressure is when we push the relationship to fit in with our projections or to fit into a certain preconceived idea we have about how a relationship interaction is expected to go.

The term “Projective identification” is often used to refer to some of what I have just been describing. This is a process in which we (unconsciously) put pressure on others to identify with our expectations about how they will act, and thereby create a self-fulfilling prophecy about the ways we think relationships will play out. Others may also provoke us into certain responses which they then blame us for, not realizing that they are the ones who are evoking the very thing they are complaining about!

These are times in which we find ourselves in situations in which someone unconsciously pressures us to become the kind of person they need us to be for psychological reasons of their own, or to react in ways that are more about them than about us. This can be an extremely exasperating experience and can make the boundaries in the relationship feel very confused. Who is doing what to whom?

What motivates this kind of behavior, especially when it seems to lead to the opposite of what a person says they want??

On some simple level, this can reflect a basic fear of change. It’s much easier to relate to someone who acts in ways similar to how others have acted with us our whole lives, because we know what to expect. We know that if we do x, the other will do y. It’s familiar and less scary than having to wait and see how the other person will act, or feel, or respond to us.

Some people may alternatively need us to be their “shadow side” so they don’t have to face something threatening in their own selves, perhaps a part of themselves that reminds them of something they hated in their own parents, or perhaps a part of their personality that feels out of control or like it takes over when it shows up. If they can get us to constantly express that shadow side for them, it reinforces their view that the shadow part exists in the “other” rather than in the “self”. Our behavior reassures them about who they are, even if they complain about it.

We all have reasons for finding people to be with who seem to fit in with our need to see ourselves a certain way. Even when we say that we want our loved ones to be just like us, our behaviors often show something quite different. We unconsciously know that doing the same things we always do is not going to create change in our family members, but we still do the same things again and again anyway (usually just louder and harder)! We could ask, why not do something a bit different if you’re looking for something different to happen?? But really people keep doing more of the same, and one reason for this is because we need the response we say we don’t want in order to feel a certain way about ourselves.

Another reason for projective identification is to communicate something of our relationship experiences or expectations that we cannot express in words. If we can think this through a little and talk about it when it seems to be happening, rather than simply reacting to or escalating the projective pressures, we might learn something that leads to more closeness rather than a repeat of frustrating experiences.

There are harsh ways of pressuring others into a certain relationship script, and then there are
other ways that are more gentle. The healthy projective process involves a soft push and pull, in which we unconsciously push our partners or loved ones in certain directions while still allowing them to equally push us back, finding some sort of middle ground that enhances both people as separate but linked. This is a way in which relationships bring out the best in us but also help us change the worst in us, in ways that aren’t traumatizing or superficial. We meet the other somewhere in the middle, by choice not by force.

Couples are often attracted to partners who seem to fit well with what they need to project. Opposites often attract for this reason. Projective processes happen between parents and children as well.

Someone frugal who partners with a spender reinforces his belief that money needs to be guarded carefully or else it will quickly disappear! The spender in this relationship reinforces his belief that it’s important to spend now because otherwise the money will become inaccessible or will have to be saved for some future that may never come.

Dependent people who partner with independent people reinforce their belief that it’s important to cling, because others can withdraw or become unavailable at any moment. The independent partner feels justified in the independent stance because his partner seems too needy, and it seems like however available he is, it’s never enough.

Again, we project out our conflicts or aspects of ourselves that feel threatening. We NEED our partners to drive us crazy, and even when we complain about not getting what we want, we are unconsciously getting exactly what we want…someone who can play the role for us that we don’t want to have to play.

Sometimes when we have a child who is very different from us, the same dynamics can occur. For example, a mother who is insecure about her weight may try to control her overweight child in ways that actually sabotage the child’s ability to lose the weight. The mother actually has a psychological need for an overweight child who she can control. Similarly, a child who pushes boundaries may get into a projective process with a parent who is very anxious about “losing control” and is rigid about rules and structure. Such a parent may actually need to be in the company of a rebel or someone who pushes the limits; this may be their very own shadow side.

The part we don’t often realize is our unconscious investment in the dynamics that seem to cause us so much frustration and pain.

There is a way out but it takes some hard work!

These projective processes can be our greatest source of healing or else the nemesis of a good relationship dynamic.

Need help sorting it out??

Click here to learn more about doing a psychoanalytic intensive with me:

https://goldsteintherapy.com/psychoanalytic-intensive/

P.S. You might also like this post:

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Is “Three a Crowd” when it comes to relationships?

When I was in graduate school, the idea of using triangulation in relationships had a pretty bad rap. But there are healthy things about relationship triangles too. (As an aside, a great book that discusses triangulation is Harriet Lerner’s The Dance of Intimacy).

What is triangulation, and what are relationship triangles anyway?

Well, triangulation itself refers to pulling in a third party to avoid the heat of having to deal directly with some anxiety or conflict in a two-person relationship. An example of this is when a parent complains to a child about the other parent, instead of communicating directly with the other parent about their gripes. This kind of intergenerational triangle can be tricky because not only is there an avoidance of direct communication between the two parents, but there is also an unhealthy boundary violation by using a child to manage a problem between two adults or two parents. However, triangulation doesn’t  have to involve an intergenerational boundary crossing. For example, a woman may complain to her best friend every time she gets upset at her husband instead of talking to him directly.

But there are other aspects to relationship triangles besides for unhealthy “triangulation” that bear mentioning too. By a relationship triangle, I mean a relationship dynamic involving three parties. Usually there is a relationship dyad operating at any given time, in which there is some kind of interaction between two of the parties. The third person is usually on the outside of the dynamic, either as the person being excluded or else as an observer or mediator. An example of a relationship triangle is the bully, victim, bystander triangle. The bully and victim are interacting and then there is also the witness to the interaction; this can be a person who is either trying to protect the victim from the bully, or conversely, egging the bully on. It’s clear in this case that the bystander has a lot of power to affect the victim/bully dynamic by his response to what he witnesses. Being an outsider comes with a power of its own.

A mother, father, child triangle is another crucial triangle in development. In many cases, the mother is the primary caregiver when a child is very young, and in this case, the mother and child are intensely close and enmeshed as the child depends unconditionally on the mother for basic survival needs such as food and care. The father is often a bit on the sidelines, although the mother’s separate relationship with the father matters a whole lot too. The father’s indirect influence both affects and is affected by the mother’s relationship with child, even though he is not as central as the mother is. The mother needs the father to ground her when the caretaking load become too much; she needs his support. The father may take pleasure in observing his wife and child interacting. The father can also take over and take care of the child when the mother needs a break. He can provide other kinds of support indirectly as well.

As a child gets older, this mother/child caregiving dyad changes somewhat and the child may become more interested in direct interactions with father that are more about things like stimulation, fun, and playfulness than maternal functions such as eating or being held. The child also develops cognitively and becomes aware of the fact that his parents have their own relationship with each other from which he is at times excluded, perhaps to be left with a babysitter or shut out by a closed door to the parental bedroom. These are pivotal experiences that help a child learn to be an observer and an outsider, and that also help the child  learn to view himself from an objective point of view. He develops the ability to see himself the way an outsider might see him and along with this comes a nascent capacity for perspective taking. Feeling excluded from the parental relationship can be painful but also relieves the child of feeling that he is his mother’s whole world. This allows him to separate and to use other relationships to get some of his needs met, for example at school and with friends. Learning to manage this mix of relief and disappointment is a crucial piece to healthy development.

Sometimes an objective third party can also be helpful in terms of mediating a relationship, as long as there is a sense of mutual respect amongst all the parties and a feeling of security that the whole picture is being kept in mind. For example, if a teenager feels that his father is being too rigid about his curfew and gets into a power struggle each time he tries to bring it up with his dad, Mom might be able to help out by helping the two of them talk to each other more effectively or even by talking with Dad privately on the teenager’s behalf. The important thing here is for the mother to respect the father’s position even as she might offer another perspective, and for this to be sensed by the teen. It’s also important in families that triangles don’t become too rigid; in this case for example, that would be if the mom was constantly stepping in to mediate between the father and the teenager. This kind of triangulation or mediation is okay once in a while, as long as all three parties have their own separate relationships with each other and an overall relationship to the family system. It wouldn’t be healthy for the triangulation to be fixed. It can also be helpful sometimes to run a situation by a third party before bringing it up directly with the person involved; sometimes this helps the communication to be more effective.

What are the triangles in your relationships and are they working well or not? Let me know your thoughts on my facebook page.

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I received many requests to create a follow up video after posting my video on “Dismissive Attachment”. Many people expressed that they wanted to hear more about the other attachment styles as well. I offer some more general thoughts about the different attachment styles in this next video. Learn how your attachment style can affect your relationship. Parents and children; couples; and just about anyone who wants to understand more about relationship dynamics will benefit from a good understanding of attachment. Attachment is an inborn need and we should all learn how to honor this important survival instinct!

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Can there be too much of a “good thing” when it comes to parenting?

Although most people come to therapy either because they feel some sort of distress or else are at a loss about how to manage a specific life situation or set of feelings, sometimes a client actually comes in because they are simply confused by the discrepancy between a sense of confidence about themselves and their actions and some sort of unexpected outcome.

I’d like to talk about a case in point: the “excellent” parent who comes in to discuss their “anxious” or “defiant” child.

When this kind of situation presents itself, the parents who come to see me usually express a sense of confidence about their parenting style; are often quite educated in many ways about contemporary “best” parenting practices; tend to be conscientious and dedicated to the child-rearing role; and are careful to work as a team so that the children always see a “joint front”. There really seems, by all accounts, to be a pretty good parenting environment which would expectedly lead to children who are secure, healthy, happy, and well-adjusted.

So it’s usually the “difficult” child that brings such parents in for help. Sometimes this child is anxious, fearful, and clingy. Sometimes the child is provocative, defiant, or angry. But the important point is that somehow the parents are completely puzzled by this child. There seems to be a child who “struggles” very much in spite of the parenting he receives; a child who calls into question the parents’ carefully thought-out notions of what it takes to raise an emotionally healthy child.

I have noticed that such parents can tend to be very smart, conscientious, and self-aware and often were prematurely insightful about flaws in the kind of parenting they received as children. They developed a very clear sense from a young age about the ways in which they would do things differently someday when they would be the ones in the parenting role. And the parenting flaws in their own parents that they counter-identified with, were not even necessarily anything extreme- like abuse or alcoholism etc.- but rather might have been something more subtle, like simply noticing a certain emotional fragility in a parent, or a role reversal between parent and child, or difficulty communicating about emotions in one’s family, or perhaps even just a subtle sense of friction between one’s parents that wasn’t shown overtly but made the child feel caught in the middle.

And in fact, when such people do become parents themselves, they are actually quite good at the parenting role. These are often parents who are warm but can be firm; flexible but also able to set limits. They foster independence in their children, avoid helicopter parenting, express warmth, communicate feelings openly and directly, pay attention to the inner experiences of their children, allow their children to fail when necessary, rarely fight in front of the kids, have fun, give their children good educational and extra-curricular opportunities, and choose childcare providers quite carefully.

In a sense, what could be better?

So it really is no surprise when such parents feel completely puzzled, confused, helpless, or frustrated when they have a child who simply doesn’t seem to respond to all of their “good” parenting in the ways that are expected. A child who is anxious or provocative may lead such parents to try even harder to find the “right” approach, or to question themselves, or to wonder if there could be some kind of reason for the child’s behavior that has nothing to do with them (for example, a “genetic” tendency to be anxious).

And while there are always so many possible explanatory factors for any child’s behaviors or emotions, many of which we may never “know” despite making our best guesses, I do like to raise the question: Is there such a thing as being “too good” for the child’s good?

And by “good”, I don’t really necessarily mean an artificial type of “good”, like the saccharine type of sweetness that some people walk around with and that seems annoyingly fake, or even a sense of following a bunch of literal parenting “rules” in a way that is too rigid.

Rather, I’m referring to a picture that is “too good” by virtue of the fact that the parents are identifying too much with the role of the “good parent” (“good” meaning balanced, composed, thoughtful, conscientious, etc.) to allow for a spontaneous reaction to the child that veers outside of the “role” that the parents feels themselves to be in.

Like, where is the real parent underneath the role??

In a sense, such parents can’t ever just be themselves and forget about trying to be a “good parent” enough, to just “be” sometimes.

My thought is that this can be disturbing to some children for a number of possible reasons. The child might sense a pressure to “turn out” a certain way and may sense the parents’ need for the child to confirm the parents’ sense of themselves as good parents (even if such parents never overtly pressure their children towards a set of expectations). The child may worry that his parents won’t be able to handle it if he messes up their “perfect parenting plan”.

Another possible dilemma for the child in such a situation is how to use his parents as a model for managing parts of himself that are unruly, not figured out, clumsy, awkward, conflicted, spontaneous, and struggling- when he can never find this in the parent? Parenting that is “too clear”, “too smooth”, “too figured out” can lead to an urge in the child to test out how safe or how real the relationship really is,  or to somehow puncture the parents’ composure with some sort of keen provocativeness. The child may also wonder (not consciously but on some unstated level): Are my parents responding to me in a spontaneous way that goes beyond their identification with a “parenting imago” that is more about their need to feel a certain way about themselves, than to have a real relationship with me as a separate self?

Some children do call our most carefully crafted plans into question…but perhaps they are also there to nudge us out of our comfort zones and to confront us with the limits of any given idealized position with which we might identify.

So I ask you: What kind of parent are you, and what can you learn about yourself and your child when you step outside of whatever box you might be in??

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Speaking Up in Relationships

One of the challenges for people who don’t speak up for themselves is that everyone seems to like them that way. Whether it’s a co-worker, spouse, child, or friend- people who seem to melt into the background and accommodate to everyone else without making much of a fuss, can be very nice to have around. When positive responses from others dovetail with a person’s own beliefs that it’s better not to speak up, ask for anything, or protest things they don’t like, it can create a pattern of over-accommodation that backfires later.

There can be many roots to the idea that it’s better to fade into the background and not make too much noise in relationships; the feeling might be that if one protests, complains, asks for anything, or “makes noise” in any way, their relationships will be destroyed. This is at times the truth! Sometimes such people get into relationships with others who put them down for having any needs or complaining about anything at all, and this reinforces the view that one has to be accommodating all the time or else they’re “too much” for others to love (or handle). Another scenario might be when over-accommodating personalities get into relationships with demanding and entitled partners (or others) who seem so loud and self-absorbed that they are embarrassing to be with! (This also reinforces the feeling that being easygoing and accommodating makes for a nicer person). 

At times these relationship beliefs begin in childhood; for example, a sibling may act out, leading another child to want to be the “good child” who spares their parents any additional trouble as they recede into the background. This pattern can also develop when a child sees his parent as too fragile to handle his needs or complaints- whether due to illness, emotional vulnerability, being overwhelmed, etc. The “good child” learns early on that the least he/she can do is avoid further burdening his/her parent or even finding ways to take care of the parent’s needs himself in some way.

The problem with this stance is that everyone has needs (whether they like to admit this or not), and being the “good one” who always accommodates to everyone else, comes with a price tag too (although this is often not evident until much later on); it can make it hard to get ahead in situations that require asserting and promoting oneself and it can make it hard to set healthy boundaries for one’s own self-protection. Being continuously attracted to others who don’t meet one’s needs or else who act entitled and demanding, also takes its toll. After a while, it can also be hard to identify one’s own needs and these signals may show up in indirect ways such as back pain, headaches, general anxiety, or even depression. 

This pattern is very difficult to break out of, because others seem to like us when we act this way; the kind of people who we take for granted are easy to have around.  Yet at some point or other, it becomes too difficult to keep swallowing all of one’s needs and desires, and reaching this point after years of silence often upsets the “apple cart” in relationships that got used to one’s over-accomodating style. Learning to speak up after not doing so for so long can also create problems because people are sometimes rather clumsy about expressing their needs after not doing so for so long- or else they become somewhat demanding because of the built-up frustration of not having had their needs met for so many years (i.e. they may go about asking for their needs to be met in ways that evoke a negative response from others, which leads to increased frustration). 

While many of us are used to thinking about how teachers or parents may unwittingly overlook a “good child” in the classroom or the home when overwhelmed by other children who are more insistent in their demands, behavior problems, or acting out, we often fail to realize that these dynamics may be at play in adult relationships as well (and sometimes we unwittingly promote this dynamic). We may feel overwhelmed by our own needs at times and find it hard to stretch out of our comfort zones to accommodate to the needs of the other; others who are super easygoing may make it easy for us to forget at times that their voice is missing from the picture.

Relationships work best when people speak up for themselves as they go along. It’s good to check in from time to time and make sure that everyone in a family or other system has a chance to speak up for their needs and to have a voice. If someone’s voice is being drowned out, no matter how nice it may seem at times, the overall health of the relationship requires that we welcome each person to have a voice and that we show our partners, friends, and family members that silencing oneself is never a favor to anyone, even if it feels easier for everyone in a given moment.

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“Looks Can be Deceiving”: Mentalization Skills in Relationships, Part I

So I’m going to talk with you today about some ideas that come from something called “mentalization based therapy”. Some of you may have heard of that but probably most of you have not. I’m going to start with some basic explanations and then we’ll look at some examples of how these ideas can actually help you with your parenting. What this is really about is some common types of misunderstandings that happen in relationships that matter to us. Relationships that feel important are more likely to push our buttons than relationships that we don’t really care too much about. For example, we’re much more likely to have strong emotional responses with our own children than with someone else’s children. If our child gets hurt, our instinct is to protect them- moreso than if we’re walking in the street and see some random person get hurt. If our spouse criticizes us, it’s more likely to hurt than if some random person in the bank makes a critical comment. The more important the relationship, the more emotional power it has.

So why does this even matter?

Well, one important reason that it matters is that when we have strong emotional responses, there are several automatic reactions that are likely to happen. Something happens to our ability to think when there are strong emotions around, and it becomes much more likely for us to “do something”. For example, suppose you see a fire in your house. You feel a rush of fear. The instinct would be to get out, escape, or call for help. You don’t stop to think about why the fire is there or whose fault it is or how interesting the sight of fire is, or the science behind the event. You simply don’t think about all of those things when there’s an emergency going on. Your emotional response in your brain prepares you to take some sort of immediate action. And this is really a great thing, because if every time there was a dangerous situation, we took the time to think about the situation, we’d lose a lot of time that was needed for getting to safety. If you see your child running out into the street, you really don’t want to start analyzing what it was that he was running after, or empathizing with how interesting the ball that he was chasing must have seemed to him. You want to simply react- take the child away from the danger. So the body’s emergency response system is certainly helpful to us.

But what happens when people start to react to mental states with the emergency response? I will explain what I mean by mental states in a minute, but this is the question I’d really like us to deal with today. Because when we react to mental states in the same way that we react to physical dangers or information, then some really interesting things start to happen to our minds. Either the mind turns off, or else it starts to do something interesting with the information it’s getting from the environment. So that is what I’d really like to talk about, because this happens with parents and children all the time. It’s sort of the way that we’re wired. But we can change those responses. The techniques for doing so are simple, but they aren’t easy. And I’d like to show you some of those techniques so you can use them.

So I promised I would explain what I mean when I say “mental states”. Okay, so suppose you look at this picture that I have here. Mental states are the hidden things that go on inside of us- like feelings, thoughts, beliefs. No one can see our mental states. Actually, mental states can’t be directly observed through any of the five senses. If I were to ask you what the feeling “caring” looks like, we couldn’t really answer, because it doesn’t have a “look”. It’s something invisible that goes on inside of a person. However, there might be certain things on the outside of a person that can give us hints about what’s going on inside. We have certain expressions on our faces when we feel different emotions. Our body language tells a lot. And so people make guesses about what’s going on inside of us based on the objective things they can see, hear, etc. If my voice is really loud and my face is very red, someone might assume that I’m angry. They can’t really see the “anger” if I am, because it’s invisible and it’s inside of me. But they can see certain things outside of me, like my expression or the color of my face and make guesses based on that. Many of our guesses are quick and automatic. We don’t even think about it. For example, you call someone on the phone and her voice sounds really distant and cold. You immediately feel hurt and assume she doesn’t want to talk to you, so you hang up. It could be a million things though- maybe you caught her in the middle of an upsetting conversation with someone else. Maybe she’s distracted by something. Maybe she’s tired and doesn’t realize how distant she sounds, but would love to talk to you. We don’t really know. We guess all the time. And usually that works well. The problem is when we believe that we know for sure what’s going on inside of the person. The problem is when we react based on our interpretation, without stopping to gather more information check if we are making the right guesses.

So this is the first thing that can happen when our emotional buttons are pushed in relationships. We might react before we have enough information, or we might believe that we absolutely know what the other person is thinking or feeling or meaning, without checking it out.

So, here’s an example of what can happen. You go to the store with your two year old and she throws a major, embarrassing tantrum in front of everyone. You already feel like a failure as a mother because all of your sisters always seem to have it together and your house is always a mess and your children don’t just listen to you the way theirs’ do. So now your child is throwing this major tantrum in public, and, already self-conscious, you feel like the entire world is staring at you and seeing the real truth- that you’re a failure as a parent and you can’t even control your own two year old. You tell your child to be quiet. You bribe her. You threaten. You try holding her down. Nothing helps. So now your emotional response system is turned on very high. You feel shame, embarrassment, and anger. You feel that your child is trying to expose your flaws to the entire world. You can’t really think too much about what’s going on, and you especially can’t think about what’s going on for your child. You’re fully in reactive mode because you feel that your very own child is out of control and purposely trying to embarrass you in public. So it’s hard for you to slow down and think about how your child missed her nap today, or might not be feeling well, or maybe just needs a little snack. It’s hard for you to think about what her behavior means for her…because you’re so worked up about what’s going on for you. This happens all the time, at any age and any stage. We either lose track of what’s going on for the other person, or we lose the ability to think.

Now, the other thing that happens when we’re in reactive mode, is that emotions can get to be contagious. This is especially true if you’re the kind of person who picks up easily on other people’s emotions. So, for example, say your child is running around, then falls down and gets hurt, and starts to scream in fear- well, you might then feel a rush of fear too. So you start to scream, or maybe even yell at your child for not being careful enough. Really, you are having a reaction to the fear that your child’s fear caused in you.  The other situation where this happens is when we give advice or solutions because our child’s experience brings up uncomfortable feelings in us. So, for example, say your daughter comes home and says that all the other girls were invited to someone’s house and that she was left out. She starts to cry and you start to feel rejected for her. It hurts you so much, now her pain is your pain. So you start to give her all sorts of solutions about how she can change situation, or maybe you rush in to fix it, and call the other mothers in the class to complain about the situation. What happens here is that because emotions are so catchy and contagious, everyone has a lot of emotional problems to deal with. Because when one person is hurting, everyone is hurting. So you don’t just have to deal with your own aches and pains, but you have to deal with everyone else’s too. And they have to deal with yours’. That’s a lot of feelings for everyone to be dealing with!

But you don’t want to be uncaring either. You do want to be able to empathize with your child’s experiences. We all know that empathy is very important.

The issue is really being able to empathize while also staying outside of the feelings, being able to step back. You want to be able to show your child that you care about his/her feelings- but you don’t want to feel exactly the same thing your child feels. That wouldn’t be healthy. After all, you’re an adult and you’re also your own person. When your child gets a shot at the doctor, it’s okay to feel bad for your child that it hurts, but you don’t want to feel as if you’re the child getting the shot. Then you’d have to go through the experience of feeling like you’re being pricked by a needle every time any of your children go through this! And that’s too much painful experience for one person. So it’s important to learn how to care but detach at the same time, how to see the whole picture- after all, you know that a needle prick just lasts for a moment and that it’s important to keep your child healthy. You want to be aware of that too, even as you care about your child’s pain.

Families that can do this- stay out of other peoples’ emotional experiences even as they react to them in their own muted/less intense way- have less of the emergency response when emotions happen, and less of the reactivity that goes along with the emergency response. So step one is to try not to react to other people’s mental states as if they are exactly the same as your own.

Okay, so suppose you’re in the park and you see a mother who is holding a baby and smiling, while talking to another mother who is pushing a young boy on a swing. There is also a little girl a few feet away in a sandbox, who calls out to her mother with the baby every few minutes, with some sort of question or just saying “Look over here! Look what I did!” Each time she does this, the woman with the baby turns around to look at her and says “I see, I can see the big castle you are building with the sand. You’re doing great.”

So anyone watching this scene would notice a lot of objective things about it. These are the things that are really facts about the situation, things that just about anybody would agree about. For example, if 10 people were watching this same scenario, they would all notice that there is an adult woman who is holding a young child. And that there is another adult woman who is pushing a young boy on a swing. And, if they were to pay attention to things like the colors of the clothing these people are wearing or the color of the baby carriage, everyone would agree about what they are seeing. Some of the people might pay more attention to certain details than others, but essentially, everyone who looks can agree on the sights they are seeing as facts. The same would be for the sounds they hear. All 10 people would be able to agree that the two adult woman are talking to each other, and that there is a little girl in a sandbox who keeps calling out “Look, see what I did”.

So, physical things that we can experience with our senses- such as things that we see or hear, well, we all mostly agree on things like that. There are exceptions, like if someone cannot hear or see too well, if someone’s imagination is very vivid and they get mixed up between what’s in their head and what’s in their mind, or if there’s an optical illusion, for example. But in normal situations, we don’t have arguments with people about things that we can observe directly. If our child has a fever, we don’t say “The thermometer is making it up, you’re just faking”. We believe the thermometer and we believe the facts about the fever. If we go on a scale that we know is pretty accurate, we don’t say to ourselves “Oh, the scale must be in a bad mood today, it’s making up a really high weight for me”. We accepts the facts. If we take something out of the oven and say out loud, “Wow, this is hot!”, it’s not likely that someone will say “What are you talking about? It looks cold to me”. We agree about facts pretty easily.

It’s the subjective stuff that’s a little harder though. And that’s the part that gets us into misunderstandings and conflicts in relationships. And to understand that, we need to explore the difference between objective facts and subjective mental experiences and how this difference impacts relationships.

Read more about this in Part II!

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