Psychological complaints often have to do with loss of connection with yourself and your feelings. This also causes loss of connection with, for example, your partner and/or others. Loss of connection and trust can have arisen early in your life because it was not emotionally safe at home. This often has to do with trauma parents (subconsciously) passed trough or things that took place in your childhood. As a child, you are dependent on the adults around you. Every child needs a safe, loving, emotional environment to develop healthy patterns and a healthy self-image. This in turn ensures healthy autonomy. This means that you can set and maintain boundaries, that you are able to connect with your feelings and they matter, that you learn to give and receive within relationships. If parents cannot give this in our youth due to (intergenerational) problems, we start to survive. This happens subconsciously. In a non-emotionally safe environment, we develop survival parts that protect our child parts. They help you to stay standing, are necessary and constructive during that period. At a later point in your life, these survival patterns usually work against you. They are then no longer constructive but destructive. If trauma is not processed, it will continue to affect your relationships in the here and now. This is possible because when we are triggered, our unprocessed pain subconsciously directs us. Subconsciously those survival parts immediately take control. Examples of this:

• endless pleasing;
• always giving but not being able to receive because receiving creates a feeling of fear;
• always wearing a mask while feeling completely different inside;
• always playing the clown or humorously putting everything away so that no one else can get closer;
• to become angry quickly or to immediately become defensive;
• constantly seeking reassurance for fear that the other person might leave you;
• withdrawing;
• not being able to get in touch with your feelings;
• putting everything away with your mind;
• not being able to express your feelings;
• freeze when someone comes close;
• flee when someone comes near;
• to be suspicious;
• constantly cheating;
• always being strong, you are the one everyone can lean on;
• really committing to someone gives you a feeling of suffocation that makes you move from one relationship to another
• binge eating to eat away the feeling;
• substance use to avoid feeling;
• excessive gaming;
• being overly focused on sex
• working very hard.

In short, anything that can distract you from your feelings and keep you away from that inner child.

Contextual

This approach assumes that when people want to come into their own and get stuck in doing so, this often has a relational cause in the (family) relationships that are important to them. In contextual therapy, you examine the relationships with the people around you. Your questions, difficulties and problems are never seen in isolation but within your context (family system). We always look back 3 generations. As a client, you are 1 generation. If you do not have children yet, your parents and grandparents are the 2nd and 3rd generation. Patterns are usually passed on intergenerationally. By looking at this without judgment, it provides insight into how your patterns have developed. Only when you are aware of the patterns and how they have developed, can you break the vicious circle.

Systemic

Using visual material such as Playmobil figures and colored areas, you will gain insight into your patterns. Visualizing helps enormously. Together we can set up your family system using these materials. Looking from a distance helps to allow it emotionally. There is often resistance because clients do not want to accuse their parents. You can feel guilty towards your parents because you blame them for things. It is not about accusing. It is about allowing feelings that are there and still unconsciously control you. Putting who you are on the table with your little self, your family members and what position you had, can help to reduce resistance.

Inner child and attachment

We always look back together at how your upbringing was. What did your little self experience? Was there time and attention for you? Was there room for emotions? Were you talked about feelings? Were you comforted or was there distance? Were you hugged? Was it said "I love you" or was everything dismissed rationally? What was your parents' relationship like? Were you bullied at school or is there another trauma such as abuse? Are there psychological or psychiatric problems with (one of) your parents or brothers/sisters?

Scientific research has taught us a lot about attachment and the consequences of insecure attachment. Children who grew up in unsafe and caring circumstances are often parentified. This means that you have been in the care role from a young age. You have had to fulfill a role that did not fit your age, namely the role of parent that is not your role. This often causes problems later in your intimate and friendly relationships, but also in the parent-child relationship when you yourself become older.

It is possible to learn how to attach yourself safely. This can be done by learning to feel. So we also work body-oriented. I use techniques from the Polyvagal theory and IFS (Internal Family System therapy). This is necessary because rationally knowing how things are is different from how they feel. The unconscious guides us. Not our ratio. When you are triggered, it is always emotional and happens unconsciously. This has to do with our limbic system and the autonomic nervous system. We call something a trigger if what is said, unconsciously reminds you of something that once happened and was painful for you. For more information about trauma and what happens in our body when we are triggered, click here.

Brainspotting

If necessary, we can also use brainspotting in addition to conversations. It is a body-oriented form of therapy. It is about feeling. Talking is not necessary in principle. For more information about this, see my website www.amsterdambrainspotting.com