Functional freeze describes the experience of shutting down and numbing while staying functional and getting through. Our physiology is essentially revved up but shut down.
Internal Family Systems
These parts may represent different aspects of our personality that developed in response to life experiences, traumas, or conflicts. Some parts may be protective, while others may hold pain or fear. You might uncover a part that's always trying to protect you, like your own personal bodyguard. Or maybe there's a part that's still hurting from something in the past, carrying around some emotional baggage. Each one of us has a part referred to as the "Self" – our core, undamaged essence that holds qualities such as compassion, wisdom, and clarity. The overarching goal of IFS therapy is to connect with oneself and cultivate a harmonious relationship between the Self and other inner parts.
Inside-Out Healing
At some point in your pursuit of caring for your mental health, you may have stumbled across the words “Somatic Therapy” or “Somatic Experiencing.” While this approach is widely used, it often leaves therapy-seekers curious about its definition and importance. So, what does it really mean to engage in somatic therapy, and how is it helpful?
Behaviors and Identity
Through much of my work with clients, I understand the importance of creating a distinction between behaviors and identity. In a recent session, a client expressed the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing due to the polarity of respecting and admiring their partner yet finding their current behaviors to be very off-putting. Having an awareness of the duality of a person’s character and behaviors can go a long way in increasing compassion, understanding, and communication.
What Healing Looks Like
In an ideal world, the process of healing would only encompass feelings of euphoria and bliss as everything magically falls into place with the snap of your fingers. However, those of us who have gone through healing phases in our lives know that it never happens that way. There are many layers to healing that may involve unfamiliar emotions, discomfort, and a lot of turning inward.
Foreboding Joy
If I asked you to name a vulnerable emotion, joy doesn’t present as the obvious answer. Instead, we tend to think about shame, loneliness, anger, anxiety, and other more traditionally “negative” emotions. So how is joy potentially the most vulnerable emotion we experience? Brene Brown answers this question in her research about foreboding joy, which she defines as: “the experience of joy immediately followed by worry or dread.”
So many of us have experienced this confusing phenomenon of mixed emotions without an understanding as to what or why this is happening internally. The feeling is so widespread that many idioms have attempted to illustrate this particular experience: have you ever thought, “This is too good to be true” or experienced the feeling of “waiting for the other shoe to drop?” I know I have experienced this long before I had a name for it. I remember one particular instance where I was looking over at my partner with love and awe, only to have the feeling transform into fears about the end of the relationship and how devastated I would feel. I also remember the intense negative self-judgment I experienced, becoming frustrated that I couldn’t enjoy a good thing and had to ruin it with these intrusive thoughts. Learning about foreboding joy has been illuminating and validating when thinking back on these memories.
I hear this same self-talk in therapy sessions every day. I have clients who describe not wanting to get too excited about a new relationship, not wanting to settle into a sense of calm at a new job, and generally not wanting to let their guard down in case the positive experience doesn’t last. So, why do we do this? Why does dread often follow joy?
Tiktok Therapy
The other day in a session, as I was trying to recall where I had recently heard about a specific symptom a client of mine was describing, I awkwardly realized I had just watched a video about it on Tiktok. Luckily, this happened with a Gen Z client who had taken to sending me relevant Tiktok videos in between sessions and we had a laugh together about my realization. A year ago, I could have never imagined saying “I saw it on Tiktok” in relation to mental health. Now, I find that more and more therapists are on Tiktok, and more and more clients come to session referencing videos they’ve seen. This realization got me wondering about the benefits and drawbacks of #tiktoktherapy, a hashtag that has 761 Million views. Here are some benefits and some drawbacks and cautions about Tiktok Therapy.
5 Stages of Grief
I suffered my first heartbreak during my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old and had just broken up with my first boyfriend. I never knew it was possible to feel so much pain. For weeks I called my friend Julia multiple times a day, crying, I sat in my car in the school parking lot, crying, and went to bed and woke up, crying. I had never really lost anything before, and grief wasn’t yet something I had encountered much in my life.
My mom, also a therapist, noticing me in my pain, told me about the Stages of Grief as described by Swiss-American Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. For the first time in weeks, I was able to name the different waves of grief I was going through, and through this was able to experience some relief and stop crying every. damn. day.
Little did I know that I would return to the Stages Of Grief over and over again throughout my life as I moved through teenage heartbreak into adult heartbreak, and deaths of pets, friends, and family. The awareness of the stages of grieving helped soothe my aching heart throughout these different losses, and also helped me provide support to clients and friends alike to cope with grief at any stage.
Coping with Grief
“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”- Maya Angelou
These lines from the poem “When Great Trees Fall” by Maya Angelou were read to me in session by a client as she prepared for her first Thanksgiving without her husband. Though this client has been feeling the immense weight of her grief daily and even hourly, the thought of the imminent holiday season has been bringing up new and intense emotions. The experience of managing grief comes up every year in therapy sessions, but this year the grieving feels even more pervasive as so many of us have lost family members throughout the pandemic. In some way, we are all grieving the loss of unmet expectations and hopes from the past 21 months.
For many, the end of the year holidays signifies a time of togetherness, happiness, and celebration. For those of us that are grieving, these feelings are muddled together with pain, loneliness, longing, resentment, and a myriad of other emotions. Creating space for all of these jumbled emotions can feel overwhelming. Here are some coping skills to keep in mind this holiday season for anyone experiencing grief in any form.