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Childhood emotional neglect – the hidden root of my pain
I just had my second EMDR therapy session. In EMDR we focus on a particular memory from our life – usually a traumatic one. I was working with an image of me when I was a child and my mother who was particularly unresponsive to my needs. Just to remind you, at the beginning of therapy my therapist confirmed that I was emotionally deprived/neglected as a child. Since then I read the book Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Dr Jonice Webb which further helped me understand my “diagnosis”. The book very well explains what emotional neglect is – it’s not about what happened but about what…
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Interview with Laura Lee: Therapist and Coach at Scapegoats Anonymous
Laura and I connected through Instagram a while ago and she’s definitely made my feed feel educational and enriching. Her posts are full of gems of wisdom and her self-awareness is inspiring. What I didn’t know about her was her “subtle” sense of humour 🙂 Here are Laura’s own words: Tell us a little about your life journey. I grew up in Brooklyn in a low-income family with middle-class amenities. The streets of Brooklyn are like the lines on the palm of my hand: imprinted on me, ingrained in my soul, and with so many divergent paths. I’m the daughter of immigrants, my mother from Italy and my father from Korea.…
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Setting ourselves free from the pain of the past
I’ve spent a good deal of time digging up my past, exploring my psyche and searching for answers and truth. I found a lot of pain, sadness, hurt and sorrow. Not only that, of course, but I’ve been focused mainly on the difficult aspects since I wanted to heal them and release myself from the emotional prison I’ve lived in my whole life. For the first part of our life we don’t realise any of this, we simply act out these painful aspects of our past that were lodged into our subconscious. Sooner or later something happens to us to wake us up, become aware and heal the pain that’s…
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Working with the inner child: illuminations and release
I’m nearly finished with my Inner Child Therapy. It’s been more than 10 weeks now and it’s been illuminating. It wasn’t as scary and traumatic as I was picturing it but it has been eye-opening and sometimes heart-breaking. I’ve had numerous “aha” moments, things I would’ve probably never known haven’t I done the work. In a way my realisations were more simple, and perhaps even quite common, than I have expected. Nevertheless, it’s been mind-boggling. The two main themes in terms of what I received or didn’t receive from my parents are described below. From my father: My father was busy and occupied with his work. His work was his…
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Inner Child Therapy: Working with the father and mother roles
Sessions number two and three from my Working with the Inner Child therapy were about getting into the role of the father and the mother and voicing everything that comes through: their words, messages, lessons, ways of punishment and rewarding, etc. In the session when I had to “be” my father I could barely find any words he had said to me when I was young. I was remembering messages from older years very clearly but I couldn’t get back to the early years of my childhood. During the session, feeling my inner child, I felt distance at first. Like my dad wanted to say something but he kept it inside,…
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Working with the inner child: unleashing unconditional self-love
Last Thursday I started Inner Child Work with a therapist. We will be meeting for 10 sessions over 10 weeks. As it normally happens, I found this person “randomly” (I believe through an Instagram post, which is somewhat odd). I followed through the post, went to her website and found some really nice blog posts and stories. Of course, the Inner Child Work just struck me on the spot and instantly I knew I had to do it. That happened some time in January. And even that it took us a little while to move and settle in Sofia, I knew I shouldn’t change my mind and get in touch…
