Working mothers

Being working mothers of toddlers is a fulfilling and challenging experience that no one really prepares us to face. Everything is on the move: every day the child grows up a little bit more, discovers new things, new behaviours and its personality is being shaped. This usually makes us want to spend as much time as we can watching them growing up, playing with them, discovering the world with them and enjoying everyday moments.

But after our maternity leave, work calls us back to real life and this can become tricky. Often young families live far from their relatives and taking up a part-time position is not always possible. Very often the only solutions are kindergartens or qualified nannies, and for new mums it can be quite hard to leave their toddlers with strangers for a whole day. As a matter of fact, this may set off a feeling of intense guilt, possibly making the moment of separation very distressful for both the mum and as a consequence the child. In fact, if our child realises the mother’s distress during the moment of separation, he may think that there is something wrong and probably something to be worried about.

What is guilt?

Guilt is a complex social emotion, that implies different cognitive evaluations. To experience guilt indeed it is necessary that at least two people are represented in one’s own mind. In particular, the person who feels guilty believes he may have potentially damaged or harmed another person (voluntarily or not) or have transgressed a moral or a social principle. As a consequence of guilt, the “guilty” person usually tries to restore a sort of balance with the “harmed” one, helping out the person or finding a way to expiate this unpleasant emotion.

Why would mums feel guilty?

As written above, very often it occurs that new mums experience maternity far away from their country of origin and without the support of the original and the extended family. In addition, the most common scenario is mums that work full-time, while simultaneously take care of housework, their partner and their baby. In summary, multitasking is not a choice but a duty! We have to cover so many roles in our daily life and we try to do it in a good way: we want to work well for ourselves/our boss/colleagues or clients, we want to be good partners and for sure we want to be the best mothers for our children. But while in the best case scenario we may be confident about our work and our relationship with our partner, being a new mum is for many a totally new experience that may lead to many doubts and thoughts.

Usually the most common thoughts of new mothers are: am I doing the right thing? Am I interpreting the signals that my baby is sending me in the right way? Is he/she OK in the kindergarten? Is it normal if he/she cries at separation? Am I a bad mother if I leave him/her there all day long? Will there be consequences if I don’t spend enough time with my baby?

The direct consequence of those questions is obviously a strong sense of guilt. You may feel guilty at work because you left your kid at the kindergarten or you may even feel guilty towards your job if you spend a day at home with child because maybe he/she is sick…

Anyway, experiencing a bit of guilt is normal as we have so many roles and responsibilities, we try to do our best to multitask and doing everything in a perfect way is really difficult. Making mistakes is normal as well! When motherhood is a brand new experience, the only way to go forward is to put ourselves on the line and just try, make mistakes and learn from them.

But if you have the feeling that guilt is becoming overwhelming, it is generating too much anxiety, it is difficult to handle or it is affecting in a bad way the relationship with your child, then take a step back and try to think about what is happening.

Many times beyond a sense of intense guilt there is a strong sense of responsibility, an excessive perfectionism or fear of committing mistakes. Furthermore, often our own personal experiences as children may play a role as well, triggering old emotions and relational memories that may influence our attitude towards our child. And this influence may not be always positive.

If this happens, considering seeking the help of a psychotherapist may be a good choice, as it could help you deal with this sense of guilt and the aforementioned dynamics, as well better handling that special and unique relationship with your child.

Bereavement

Bereavement is an extremely touching experience, difficult to articulate in words. The normal reaction to losing a beloved person implies a mix of feelings that can vary from deep sadness to guilt, anger or emptiness. Usually the person experiences the tendency of spending some time by himself/herself in order to cry for the loss, remember the memories, realise what has happened and “adjust” his/her life with the absence of the departed one.

The five stages of grief

Even if psychologists support the theory of the Five Stages of Grief theorised by Elizabeth Kubler Ross, everyone has its own specific pattern of reaction. Usually we need a variable amount of time in order to cope with a loss and it is proportional to the intimate meaning and role that the departed person represented to us.

Often, the very first reaction to some shocking sad news is denial. Many times people remember that their first thoughts were: Are you serious? What are you talking about? That is not possible! Denial is a primitive and protective reaction and it can manifest in different forms: for someone denial can last only few minutes, for others it can last few hours or even days; the person can feel shocked, stunned, turned upside down without realising what is going on and without feeling the relative emotions yet. Denial can then be followed by anger: Why is this happening to me? Why him/her? It is not fair! Why did he/she leave? Anger is a protective reaction as well; our anger can be addressed to different objects or persons, even the beloved one.

After anger, the person usually enters the bargaining stage, when he/she starts to look for explanations and faults about what happened. The universal and most known stage is then the depressive one, when sadness and regrets are dominant. On the contrary, the last stage is characterised by acceptance: realising and accepting the death of the loved person is the first step to go back to reality.

Not everybody is able to reach the acceptance stage: it can happen, for many different reasons, that a person gets stuck in one of the previous stages and needs a little help to elaborate the loss.

What to do

If we have trouble in elaborating bereavement, time is not healing our wounds and we have the feeling of being trapped by intense and sometimes contradictory emotions, psychotherapy can be a useful tool to get past this.

This is for example what happened to one of my first patients and how therapy worked for her.

Maria’s experience

She was a lovely and smart lady over 80 years old, who I will call Maria here; she lost her husband a few years earlier and she was stuck in the depressive stage. Actually Maria didn’t just lose her husband, she had lost her unique, special and long-lasting love after 60 years of marriage, the person she totally relied on for almost all of her life. And she was not able even to think about her life without this precious man by her side. Maria was very depressed and felt lost; no antidepressant was helping her so she decided to start psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy supported her while going through almost all the stages of loss. Indeed she was not alone while she was crying all her tears, expressing all her anger towards her condition and her dead husband who left her alone, while passing through guilt and every regret and remorse. In the end psychotherapy helped her searching and strengthening her personal dispositions that could help her in coping with that difficult period. Little by little, Maria started reorganising her life, finding new ways, new goals and new meanings. After two years of therapy, Maria decided that it was time to end psychotherapy: she realised that she will always be missing her husband, that she could never forget him, but that she could focus on her nephews, her family and friends to feel better. And in that moment she felt that she could do it by herself.

This is a good example of how a psychotherapist can indeed help you express and understand your feelings, realise what is keeping you stuck in a particular stage of grief and prevent you from coping with your loss.

Criticism and relationships

Being criticised is a very common experience that can occur in every relationship, at work, at home or with friends.

In particular, criticising and reproaching a bad conduct may be a natural way of expressing our disapproval for a certain behaviour and our feelings related to it. It is indeed normal to be ourselves sometimes – the ones criticising or being criticised by other people. In the end no one is perfect!
But there are different ways of reproaching.

Positive and negative reproaches

A constructive and positive way of reproaching a person is when this relates to a specific behaviour and is supported by reasonable explanations. Moreover, this type of reproach may imply suggestions on how to change and repair the “wrong” behaviour, thus putting ourselves in the shoes of the other person.

On the contrary, sometimes it may occur that the reproach is expressed in a very negative and judgmental way, without expressing what the wrong behaviour is or how it could be fixed. Furthermore, in some instances the reproaching person may shift his or her judgement to the person as a whole instead of criticising the single bad behaviour, which is often followed by a negative emotional response in the criticised person.

Let’s focus on negative criticism. Negative criticism can be defined as a constant, pervasive and repetitive tendency to reproach another person. In particular, criticism in parenting may become a style of relating to children and adolescents (Apparigliato, 2011). As anticipated, the criticising person may show his or her disappointment for a particular behaviour (or the omission of a behaviour) in order to change it, but he/she may not consider the son’s preferences and believes to know what is good and what is not for their son.

Consequences of criticism

Research suggests that high levels of perceived criticism have been linked to higher relapses in depressed and schizophrenic patients, and drop-outs in patients with eating disorders. Plus, parental criticism may develop excessive perfectionism in children, who may try harder than usual to satisfy such high demanding and difficult parents. And perfectionism is a well known anxiety-related feature.

Given what literature suggests, it can be really distressful to live with such a critical parent or partner, with sometimes negative psychological and self-esteem consequences. In particular, growing up in this type of environment, with a parent (or both) always prone to criticise and demanding to reach their own high personal standards may lead a person to doubt one’s own abilities, talents and strengths, causing suffering and distress.

If you recognise yourself in these dynamics, you may consider discussing this delicate personal issue with a psychotherapist that can help you elaborate these feelings and handle criticism in different way.

What to do

Meanwhile, here there are some little tips that you could try to use:

• Try to take into account only the good in every reproach. If you have been negatively criticised, try to think if there can be a positive information for you in it. Sometimes a reproach, even if expressed in the wrong away, is made for a reason. So try to trash the negativity, shame, guilt or anger that you may feel and ask yourself: is there a real reason for being criticised? Was there a better or useful way to behave? Could I fix or change something of that behaviour? The answer may be no, but sometimes it may be yes.
• Do not accept generalisations: if the blame gets born from a single behaviour but it becomes generalised to your whole person… use boundaries! You are who you are and a single specific wrong behaviour doesn’t imply a total and negative judgment of you as a human being. Try not to take it too personally.
• Very often the problem is not yours but theirs – people who constantly and negatively criticise usually have something going on in their mind. It may occur that when going through rough times, someone may try to vent their problems in this way. In other cases instead, someone could have experienced a very reproaching relationship themselves and negative criticism may be the only learnt and well known way of expressing care in a relationship.
• Be assertive – communicate the person when the boundary from positive to negative criticism is crossed and how that makes you feel. And if you have to make a reproach … remember the aforementioned features of constructive reproaches and try not to fall into the trick of negative criticism.

“There is nothing permanent except change”, Heraclitus

Change: a six-letter word that can enclose and raise so many different feelings and meanings in each of us.

For some change may imply new thrilling experiences when they can test themselves, explore unknown territories and create better ways of living. On the contrary for others changing may be a mandatory and unavoidable step, at times not wanted and burdened with suffering, but possible to deal with. Moreover, for other people change is really scary and may imply the total breakdown of what is “well known” and bring them in a terrific spot of unknown and uncertainty. In these cases, tightly grasping to the past may be a solution.

Why is change so important?

As Heraclitus quoted back in 400 A.C., change is probably the only permanent thing in life.
Darwin explained this concept very well in his Evolutionary Theory: changing allows organisms to better adapt themselves to their environments. Moreover, the better the organism is able to adapt, the higher the likelihood of survival.

If change is natural, why can it be so scary?

Change can refer to thousands of different situations with extremely different features. Obviously the potential scariness will depend on many characteristics, such as how much it was expected, wanted and foreseen, if positive or negative consequences will result from it (their extent and how definitive they are), the amount of secondary changes that it may imply, how much we feel able to deal with it, etc.

Try to think about some of the following important changes that can happen in a lifetime and try to relate them to the aforementioned features: finishing school and starting to work, a marriage or a divorce, a betrayal, changing job, changing city, becoming a mother, the loss of a loved one, going into retirement … the list is potentially infinite.

Each of these changes may assume different meanings to each of us depending on our personal history, current lifestyle, our goals and our intimate beliefs. But a common denominator is that our self-esteem will influence how we will manage these changes: the more we feel that we are able to cope with the related changes and difficulties, the less scary the change will be.

And what if we feel that we are not strong enough, independent enough or lovable enough to succeed in getting through an important change?

In these cases change can be faced in different ways.

Someone could go through it with an intense pain, anxiety or sadness managed with its own specific coping mechanisms. For example someone could find relief by increasing their control over everyday life, or by being extremely dependent on the partner/parents/friend.

On the contrary other people may be so scared about a potential change that he/she may try to stay ahead in the game and work hard to avoid it in the first place.

Instead other people may react to change misrepresenting it, not taking into account its consequences, minimising it or pretending it’s not happening. But denial and keeping our eyes closed will not eventually change things; on the contrary this solution may disconnect you from reality, that sooner or later will intensely materialise.

Usually our typical pattern of reaction to new information is consolidated in the attachment relationship with our parents; but with clinical work it can be changed.

If you recognise yourself in having issues at adapting and accepting important changes in your life, you may try to think about the dynamics written above.

What is scaring you? What are the feared consequences? What are your intimate beliefs about yourself dealing with this change?

Sometimes it may be hard to go through this alone by ourselves. Psychotherapy can help you realise what is preventing you to adapt to how your life is turning out. Moreover, it can help you achieve more flexibility and strengthen your self-esteem.

Being aware of what is happening is, as a matter of fact, the first step to change.

Sleep Paralysis

Sleep Paralysis is a very frightening experience that can sometimes happen during sleep.

Here it goes.

You are lying in bed in that special transitional state between sleep and wakefulness. You may be about to fall asleep, or you might have woken up in the middle of the night and are then trying to fall asleep again, or you may be just about to fully wake up in the morning.

In either case, what actually happens is that your mind is fully aware of being awake but your body is unable to move. It doesn’t matter how hard you try but no muscle will eventually respond to your orders. Obviously you might feel frightened and you will most likely have several thoughts crossing your mind, such as: What’s happening to me? Am I paralysed? I want to call for help but I’m not even able to open my mouth and utter a single word!

This temporary paralysis can last from a few seconds up to even 10-15 minutes. After a while you will eventually regain control of your own body but this represents quite a shocking experience that won’t easily be forgotten.

Another disquieting feature of sleep paralysis is the fact that most of the times it is accompanied by hallucinatory phenomena, adding to the experienced sense of fear.

The most common kind of hallucinatory phenomenon reported, is the perception of a threatening presence in the room, as if there were an intruder. Sometimes this presence is more intensively perceived through the senses than just merely detected: it could even be seen, heard or smelled. Those who have gone through this kind of unsettling experience can also report they were being touched or even attacked by this ‘alleged’ presence as though a weight was pressing them down on the chest, leaving them unable to move or preventing them from sitting up.

It is indeed quite a disturbing experience.

Another particular but less common hallucinatory phenomenon that can accompany Sleep Paralysis, is an Out-of-Body experience (OBE).

The person is paralysed in bed but has the feeling that their own soul is leaving the body, flying and floating in the room or even outside of the house, watching the body from an external perspective. Contrary to the intruder hallucination, this kind of experience is usually associated to very positive feelings.

Causes 

Sleep paralysis seems to be caused by a REM-sleep intrusion into wakefulness. REM-sleep is a stage of sleep where our muscles are almost totally atonic.

It is rare yet it can occur if the transition between REM-sleep and wakefulness is quick and sudden; as a matter of fact, the brain maintains the body in an atonic state ‘by mistake’.

Some authors suggest that the reason why hallucinations tend to accompany sleep paralysis lies in the activation of the so called ‘vigilance system’. The potential threat of the sleep paralysis experience activates this system, whose aim is to scan and monitor the environment in search of potential dangers. In this singular and ambiguous situation, the brain may very easily misinterpret environmental signals (Cheyne, 2002; Cheyne, 2007).

Experiencing Sleep Paralysis once in a while shouldn’t worry you excessively.

Sleep deprivation, having an irregular sleep-wake rhythm or going through a stressful period can well trigger this phenomenon.

Furthermore, sleep paralysis is a frequent symptom of narcolepsy.

If this phenomenon is recurrent then consulting a sleep specialist is warmly recommended.

Emotions

It is strikingly interesting how past scientific theories on the functioning of the human body have remained so deeply rooted in our common sense.

For example Cartesian dualism regarding the differentiation between body and mind is sometimes still supported; on the contrary, body and mind are deeply interconnected and they should not be considered as two separate entities.  As a matter of fact, our body is littered with receptors that constantly report to our brain the activities of that particular area, in order to grant a better control of their tasks.

Another theory that is usually misleading is Aristotle’s concept that our heart is the centre of emotions; in the last decades plenty of scientific data widely showed how the origins of emotions rely in several and very specific areas of the brain, that activate our body for a very rapid reaction.

Emotions are internal states that accompany us in our everyday life, carrying very important and precious information about ourselves.

Every emotion implies 3 different components: a cognitive, a behavioural and a physical one.

The cognitive component is about the evaluation and the thoughts on the emotion; the behavioural is about the reaction that we will adopt as a consequence of the emotion, while the physical is about the change in our body functions that prepare our body to action.

Contradicting Aristotle’s theory, emotions rely in the body as much as in our brain.

Primary and Secondary emotions

In psychology we talk about primary and secondary emotions.

Primary emotions are:

• fear;
• joy;
• sadness;
• anger;
• disgust;
• surprise.

These emotions are called “primary” because anthropologically they have been present since the very beginning of the story of the human being, we share them with primates and they are universally experienced and recognised, as showed by scientist Paul Ekman.

On the contrary, secondary emotions are more recent, as they appeared when our forebears started to live in social groups; therefore they are “social” emotions: guilt, shame, envy, jealousy, …

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognise one own’s and other people’s emotion, to manage them and to use them in a constructive way is called Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is considered nowadays very important as it seems that it effectively impacts our work performance and our ability to relate to other people.

Many times relational problems are indeed consequences of a difficulty in understanding the other person’s emotional world and relating to it.

Emotions are very important as they indicate our direction in the world and tell us how well we are dealing in achieving our intimate goals.

If you want to read more about why emotions are so important, click here. 

Related articles:

“Emotions: hello strangers!” by Ilaria Tedeschi

If you want to know more about the relation between emotions and eating habits, read:

“Overeating as a coping mechanism: Binge eating Disorder”, by Ilaria Tedeschi

Suggested links:

http://www.paulekman.com

http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/

Bipolar Disorder

As the former quote says, mood swings are the core feature of people with bipolar disorder.

As a matter of fact, events can trigger the mood swings, making the person feel the related excitement or sadness in such a deep way.

Bipolar disorder is an affective disorder that implies strong mood swings, from mania or hypomania to deep depression, alternating with periods of time with mood in a normale range.

There are two types of bipolar disorders:

• Type I: periods of intense activation and excessive mood elevation alternates with periods of deep depression. During mood elevation, the person doesn’t need to sleep as much as usual, acts in a different way from how he normally does, has an extreme self-confidence that could bring him to get involved into potentially dangerous situations (excessive speed driving, gambling, not safe and/or promiscuous sexual activity, …). This elevation is so intense that it gets very difficult to handle and potentially dangerous for the person himself or the people who surround him, requiring then a hospitalisation. Sometimes mixed states can be present: the person can experience symptoms of mania and depression at the same time.

• Type II: periods of time with hypomania alternate with periods of depression. Hypomania means having a less intense mood elevation, that never requires a hospitalisation. Even if the mood swings are less intense, their impact and consequences are anyway impressive.

Bipolar disorder treatment?

Bipolar disorder can be managed with an appropriate pharmacotherapy with mood stabilisers prescribed by a specialised psychiatrist, that will help you in controlling these swing and that should be very regularly taken.

Cognitive Behavioural psychotherapy is a parallel tool that is highly recommended by NICE guidelines (National Institute of Health and Care Excellence) in the treatment of bipolar disorder.

As a matter of fact, psychotherapy can be very helpful to better cope with the consequences of the swings and to adjust your lifestyle to prevent mood changes and to better cope with them. The best ways to prevent mood changes are indeed pharmacotherapy and adopting a very stable and healthy lifestyle.

As Sun Tzu said, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”. Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy can help you in getting to know bipolar disorder, in having a better awareness of it and in early recognising when the mood is changing so that you will be better prepared to deal with it before it gets worse.

Bipolar disorder can be a heavy burden; but with a good specialised help, you can arrange the best solution for you to cope with it.

Related articles:

“Life on a swing: sharing life with the bipolar disorder” by Ilaria Tedeschi.

Suggested links:

www.bipolaruk.org.uk

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/bipolardisorder.aspx

http://www.isbd.org

“And you don’t know I much I loved you,

how much wasted love,

silently waiting for you to see me 

and to understand what you already know, 

that I am how you want me to be,

how you want me to be.

I am the only one you can love,

don’t you see that I am only a few steps away from you?”

“Sono come tu mi vuoi “, I. Grandi

Complacency and relationships

Being complacent is a normal attitude that in small doses everybody uses.

As a matter of fact, a little bit of complacency in our daily lives is necessary: we are not always completely free to be who we are, to say what is on our mind or to bring forth what we desire. A bit of complacency and adherence to the rules that society requires us to apply to, are the basis of living in a civilised world.

Sometimes complacency can add up to becoming much more invasive, prying into relationships and hiding our real true self. Herein, we are talking about the “false self”, a psychoanalytic concept formerly theorised by Donald Winnicott.

False self is a defensive barrier that protects us from not being hurt by others; in extreme cases it can completely conceal the true self, making it very difficult to reach.

False self can take the form of complacency in relationships, especially in a couple: acting in order to meet our partner’s expectations can be a strategy to prevent a very feared rejection.

Trying our best to avoid what we fear is a normal behaviour, it is our natural instinct that protects us from being hurt. But when complacency gets too intense, when we try our best to be who we think that our partner wants us to be and by doing so we deny ourselves and our desires … we expose ourselves to risk much more than we could imagine.

What are the consequences?

What is the long term outcome of such a relationship? Where do our desires and spontaneity end up? Can we be really sure about how our partner would like us to be?  Moreover, will our partner be really satisfied by having a faux but apparently perfect partner?

There are not straightforward answers to these questions.  Every relationship is different, it implies two extraordinary and unique human beings, bonding together and creating special dynamics.

However, we know that not listening to who we are and what we want can bring us to a long-term dissatisfaction, a feeling of emptiness, of not being alive and in the end to a difficulty in reading ourselves. In addition, we can imagine how those feelings could affect the mood and happiness of a person and consequently put the couple at stake.

The attitude of creating complacent relationships usually founds its roots in our early years and it is a signal of a suffering area, linked to the fear of being rejected, not loved or criticised when we show our real selves.

What can you do about it?

If this rings a bell, sit back and relax, there’s nothing to worry about! Being aware of this attitude is the first step to change.

Moreover, taking care of our suffering areas is the best way to build healthy relationships and, above all, to contribute to our wellbeing and happiness.

As soon as you become aware of any related dynamics like the aforementioned, take some time to think it through and if you feel like you need help seek advice and contact a psychotherapist or a counsellor.

Insomnia Natural Remedies

Insomnia: what it is

Not sleeping as much as we would is unfortunately quite a common problem. Insomnia means having trouble falling asleep (initial insomnia), maintaining sleep during the night due for example to too many awakenings (middle insomnia) or early morning awakenings (terminal insomnia). Read more

Symptoms of a panic attack

Suddenly your heart beats fast, like a drum; it’s difficult to breath and you have air hunger. Your stomach hurts, like if someone punched it. Your head is spinning, the world around you or your body seem suddenly unreal, weird.

You feel an intense fear or anxiety, that is increasingly worsening moment by moment. You are worried about going crazy, losing control or that something really bad could happen, maybe you are even afraid that you could die and you feel the sudden impulse to go out, breath new air.

After about ten minutes, everything goes back to normal. But worries about what has just happened still remain: did I have a heart attack? Am I getting crazy? Will this happen again?

Read more