Relationships

Relationships: Romantic & Nonromantic Ones

Interpersonal Issues & Relational Trauma

When I am sitting across clients, they initially say they’re coming in for depression, anxiety, or trauma. Eventually, they’ll often tell me about the people in their lives: parents, significant others, friends, coworkers, colleagues, and more. Their relationships are not just limited to romantic ones. As my clients’ stories unravel, they talk about how their interactions didn’t go so well, that they didn’t know how to communicate their intentions better, or that they wished they had healthier, more functional relationships with others.

Maybe your father never told you he loved you—and you feel a void in your heart that you’ve tried to ignore, but can’t.

Maybe your friendships keep falling apart because you can’t get past your conflicts or disagreements, or you don’t know how to navigate your differences.

Maybe you and your siblings fight the minute you both talk, and you don’t know how to even talk to them without fighting, let alone be in the same room as them.

How we relate, communicate, and connect with others significantly affects our moods, our well-being, and how we overall feel about our lives. Relationships can make or break our lives whether we have meaningful or toxic ones. Or, we may not even have enough relationships that fill us up. We would be missing a huge picture of your mental health if we didn’t consider how much your relationships impact you. So while my clients aren’t wrong when they initially come in to alleviate their anxiety, depression, and/or trauma, these are symptoms that may show up when you do not get your need of connection met.

How Unfulfilling Relationships or the Absence of One Can Show Up

Depression

• Life feels pointless, purposeless, and hopeless when you’re not sharing your joys and sorrows with anyone.

• You’re overburdened or overwhelmed by all the responsibilities in your life, and reaching out to someone feels like another big task.

• You feel discouraged and unmotivated to do anything to connect with others because you haven’t had very much luck in doing so, so you don’t.

• You’re lonely, but you believe that you’re a burden or you feel ashamed for not having enough people in your life to talk to or rely on—so you continue to isolate yourself.

• . . . which then makes you more depressed. And the downward spiral continues.

Anxiety

• You’re worried of hurting other people, upsetting them, or them not liking you, so you continue to compromise yourself and please others to make others feel comfortable and happy.

• You’re worried that you will die alone and lonely, so you put up with dissatisfying relationships.

• You’re not sure who you are, what values you hold, or what you want your relationship with yourself to look like—and not knowing any of this feels too scary and daunting to figure out on your own.

• Or you dislike yourself and it’s too uncomfortable to face your insecurities.

• . . . so you tend to mainly look outward and look for external validation for brief relief, only to feel anxious again.

Trauma

• You keep running into similar dynamics and issues with your significant other and don’t know how to change it or why it keeps happening.

• You get triggered easily and find yourself in a fight or flight mode with others. You’ll either get really angry and say or do things you will regret, or you’ll avoid conflict as much as possible and sweep your feelings under the rug because that was the safe thing to do before.

• But now you’re having a hard time containing your feelings, and/or you’re having a hard time feeling connected to others and building intimacy and trust with others.

• You have a hard time trusting other people, because in the past you’ve been deeply hurt—maybe both emotionally and physically.

• Throughout your childhood, your parents or caregivers weren’t there for you the way you needed them to and/or when you needed them.

How We Will Work Through Relational Issues:

Gestalt Therapy | Relational Therapy

By now, you already know how vital and crucial it is to have meaningful and functional relationships with others, and yet, relationships are so challenging! People don’t always give you feedback on how they’re impacted by you, so you might not always be receiving the feedback you need in order to learn to have a healthy, meaningful relationship. But in our therapy, you will. :)

→What is Gestalt Therapy? What is Relational Therapy?

What’s unique about our therapy is that you will receive live feedback during session on how we impact one another. This isn’t about me pointing out your flaws and lecturing or correcting you. This would be an exchange of sharing ourselves authentically to bring more awareness to how we are interacting with one another. This might sound scary and will require you to be honest with yourself, but imagine how useful of a tool this would be!

“But what if becoming more aware makes me more self-conscious? I don’t want to be more self-conscious!” Self-awareness does not equate becoming more self-conscious about yourself. In our therapy, you’ll hone in on your skills on being able to observe yourself non-judgmentally. Self-awareness is part of observing what is happening in the moment without judgment. As a Gestalt therapist, my job is to help you cultivate your self-awareness skills, in order to recognize your patterns, look at the choices you have, and create change. This process follows Gestalt therapy’s model, which again, most simplistically, breaks down into three points:

1) Build self-awareness.

2) Choices: Recognize that you now have choices.

3) Change: choose to respond differently.

In Gestalt therapy, self-awareness refers to being able to catch yourself and become aware of yourself in the present moment. It is slightly differently than insight, because insight is a realization that you are able to recall.

For example, let’s say that whenever your mother criticizes you, you feel irritated, or maybe even angry. But you don’t say anything. You ignore her, or you just take her criticisms. You’re left still feeling quite unresolved, and even resentful. You tend to be hard on yourself, and/or you have a hard time taking in other people’s feedback because you’re hypersensitive the moment you feel criticized, which is totally understandable.

BUT

Now you’re sabotaging your other relationships because you have a hard time trusting that other people may actually have your best interest at heart. You push people away, hide, or argue back with others to protect yourself.

Let’s say you know all these patterns about yourself. This is insight. I imagine that this part of you will also likely show up in our work together. When this pattern plays out in session, it’s usually difficult to realize that it IS playing out at the moment. When this happens, I provide observations to have you process what it is like for you to show up with these patterns at the present moment. I also may share feedback on how your relational patterns impact me at the present moment.

Because there is a lot that will be exposed in our sessions, shame commonly shows up in sessions. The goal in our therapy isn’t for you to feel more ashamed or embarrassed; it is to process whatever feelings show up in order for you to realize that you have choices, and you can choose to respond differently if you wanted to. Our work together will require both of us to slow down, see what is happening between us, take it in as useful information, and instead of letting our emotions take over and choose what we will do next, we get to decide what we will do next.