Tag: Couples Counseling

Healing from Childhood Trauma: Rediscovering Your Inner Strength

Life can be an intricate journey, shaped by our experiences and upbringing. Unfortunately, some of us have endured the weight of childhood trauma, which can cast long-lasting shadows on our self-esteem, mental well-being, and overall happiness. However, the good news is that healing from childhood trauma and reclaiming your inner strength is possible. If you find yourself struggling with symptoms of low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety due to childhood trauma, know that you are not alone. In Queens, NY, I invite you to embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery and healing through psychotherapy. Together, we can pave the path toward a brighter future.

Understanding the Impact of Childhood Trauma:

Childhood trauma encompasses a wide range of experiences, such as neglect, abuse, witnessing violence, or living in a chaotic environment. These adverse events can have a profound impact on our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. They can shape our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, creating patterns of negative thinking, self-doubt, and emotional distress that persist into adulthood.

Acknowledging the Struggles:

It is important to recognize that struggling with low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety as a result of childhood trauma is not a sign of weakness. These struggles are a reflection of the resilience you have shown in navigating the challenges you faced. However, reaching out for support is a courageous step towards reclaiming your power and creating a life defined by joy, fulfillment, and self-worth.

The Role of Psychotherapy in Healing from Childhood Trauma:

Psychotherapy offers a safe and nurturing space where you can explore your past experiences, unravel the impact of childhood trauma, and develop coping strategies to foster resilience and healing. As a qualified and compassionate therapist based in Queens, NY, I am dedicated to providing a supportive environment that encourages growth and empowers you to embark on a transformative journey towards well-being.

Benefits of Psychotherapy:

Building self-esteem:

Low self-esteem is a common consequence of childhood trauma. Through therapy, we will work together to challenge negative self-perceptions, develop self-compassion, and cultivate a more positive self-image.

Managing depression and anxiety:

Childhood trauma can often lead to depressive symptoms and anxiety disorders. Therapy can equip you with tools to manage these conditions, promoting emotional well-being and enhancing your ability to navigate life’s challenges.

Processing past experiences:

Unresolved childhood trauma can linger in our subconscious, impacting our daily lives and relationships. Psychotherapy provides a space to process these experiences, fostering understanding, acceptance, and growth.

Developing healthy coping mechanisms:

Coping mechanisms developed in response to childhood trauma may no longer serve you. Therapy can help identify and develop healthier coping strategies, allowing you to navigate stressors more effectively.

Cultivating resilience and personal growth:

Healing from childhood trauma is a transformative journey that involves nurturing resilience and fostering personal growth. Therapy can provide guidance and support as you embrace your inner strength and work towards creating a fulfilling life.

Take the First Step Towards Healing from Childhood Trauma:

If you are ready to embark on a journey of healing, growth, and self-discovery, I encourage you to consider making an appointment with me at my private practice in Queens, NY. Together, we will create a safe and compassionate space where you can explore your experiences, find healing, and redefine your narrative. Remember, you deserve to lead a life that is defined by strength, resilience, and well-being.

Childhood trauma can cast long shadows on our lives, but it doesn’t have to define us. Through psychotherapy, you can reclaim your inner strength, build resilience, and create a brighter future. In my private practice in Queens, NY, I am here to guide you on your healing journey.

Take the first step towards rediscovering your worth and embracing a life filled with joy, fulfillment, and self-love. Together, we can embark on a transformative path of healing and growth. To begin your healing journey, follow these simple steps:

  1. Contact Loren Ecker, LCSWR at Queens Relationship Counseling LCSW, PLLC
  2. Make an appointment and meet with me in the conveniently located Queens office or schedule a meeting over Zoom.
  3. Start your “recovery from infidelity” journey so that you can eventually turn the page on this painful experience and enjoy a new and more hopeful outlook on life and on your relationship.

 

OTHER COUNSELING SERVICES AT QUEENS RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING LCSW, PLLC

At Queens Relationship Counseling, I offer a range of services to help couples and individuals overcome various challenges and improve their relationships. While my expertise includes recovery from affairs and infidelity, I also provide Couples and Marriage Counseling as well as Treatment for Overcoming Pornography and Masturbation.

Secure Attachment and it’s impact on Couples Counseling in New York

When couples do finally make it into see me for couples counseling I help them to reframe their struggles not as an inherent defect in their partner but rather as a negative cycle that emerges in their relationship as a result of their making ineffective bids for closeness and connection.

Image of several diverse arms holding up hearts. If you're looking to create secure attachments with trusted family members, visit us for couples counseling in Queens to help!

What is Secure Attachment?

I’ve been watching a show on The History Channel called “Alone.” Ten people are chosen to survive alone in the woods, alienated from civilization and from any and all other human contact. The last person who doesn’t “tap out” but remains in the woods wins $500,000. They are allowed to choose ten items to take with them that will aid in their survival. Most choose sleeping bags, knives, saws, axes, tarps, etc. To contend with the feelings of isolation they will inevitably endure, they can bring one picture. Most choose to bring a snapshot of their child or spouse.

From watching two seasons of “Alone,” I have gleaned that the winner is not necessarily he or she who is most capable of constructing a shelter and obtaining nourishment, but rather, the one who can endure long bouts of loneliness and isolation. In fact, one person on the show, the Season 2 winner, David, noted how he realized that his hierarchy of needs went air, water, food, and loved ones. He found that when he had enough food and water to sustain himself for a period of time, his mind inevitably turned to his kids, and that’s when things got really hard for him because he missed them so much.

What impact does Secure Attachment have on Couples Counseling in NY?

Image of a couple walking together in the street. If you're looking to make a connection with your partner, reach out to us for couples counseling in Queens today! This corroborates with what Dr. Sue Johnson, the leading developer of EFT, Emotionally Focused Therapy, a therapeutic modality used to treat couples and individuals based on Attachment Theory, has been teaching over the last 50 years. Specifically, “From cradle to grave, human beings are hardwired to seek not just social contact, but also physical and emotional proximity to special others who are deemed irreplaceable. The longing for a “felt sense” of connection to key others is primary in terms of the hierarchy of human goals and needs” (Johnson, 2019).

As a marriage and couples therapist, I can attest that love and connection to one another are essential human needs, without which many of us feel unhinged and highly dysregulated. Just as air, water, and food serve to nourish the body, the experience of being securely attached to another nourishes the soul and provides us with a stable base from which to explore the world unencumbered by existential fears of abandonment and annihilation.

Ironically, even couples living together can experience the same sense of isolation from one another as the participants living in the woods on “Alone.” When defensiveness and protective reaction replaces responsiveness and attunement, couples can feel as if they are totally alone and insecure in their attachment to each other. It is this feeling of alienation from one another that typically precipitates a visit to my office for counseling.

How can Couples Counseling in Queens, NY help with Secure Attachment Issues?

Image of a book with pages bent into a heart representing the importance of building a trustworthy relationship with your partner. Couples Therapy in Queens NY can help with that! Reach out now! In other words, instead of feeling criticized and judged by the other’s expression of feelings, I help the couple to see their partner’s “complaints” as an expression of longing for one another. When they can validate the other’s experience and communicate understanding instead of the usual defensive reactivity, their partner’s nervous system automatically relaxes, and he or she once again feels securely attached and loved.
Operating now, once again from a secure base of attachment, they can feel free to venture out independently and take on the inevitable challenges that life brings.

Secure attachment… perhaps the most important of all survival tools!

Read more about secure attachement here

 

Contact Couples Counseling in Queens, NY 

If you feel hopeless, angry, abandoned, and confused in a relationship that feels loveless, have ever argued or resigned to shutting down and disengaging, you don’t have to suffer any longer. Couples Counseling in Queens, New York, can Help! There are many reasons for couples to seek marriage and couples counseling, not only when their relationship is on the rocks and about to end. It can also enhance the love and connection between more securely attached couples.

1. Read more about us!
2. Set up an initial consultation to determine if Marriage and Couples Counseling is right for you.
3. Start the process of healing your relationship, reconnecting with your partner, feeling happier, more satisfied, and optimistic, and ultimately reliving the joy and love you once shared.

Other Services Offered at Queens Relationship Counseling

Ready to deepen your relationship? Then consider Marriage and Couples Therapy with Loren Aryeh Leib Ecker, LCSWR. His proven methods can be just the extra push your relationship needs to get you where you want it to be.