It will help your emotional and social development to recognize the stages you’ve gone through to get to be who you are emotionally today. More importantly, it will help you understand that you can, within obvious limits, pretty much be whoever you want to be now and in the future. The point is that you can change, so why continue to struggle and suffer. Why not invent the self and life you want? Stage 1: Your thoughts and actions are determined by your parents and other adults—by what they say and don’t say and do and don’t do      When we are children, our parents and other adults seed our minds and the seeds simply, naturally grow into something we accept as us. They believe that people aren’t to be trusted and we believe it too. They act as if their needs are more important than ours and we accept...

Until you make correct meanings of old, distressing events, you’ll be stuck in a mental time warp and at risk for emotional eating because you won’t feel in control when you’re triggered by them. Triggers are no more than old perceptions that something is wrong. Nothing need actually be wrong, but we think it is. Here are two examples. You were the middle child among five siblings. Your older brothers were close in age  and hung around together, your younger sisters were bubbly extroverts, and you were and remain an introvert. Your siblings teased you (though lovingly) about your shyness and mostly left you alone, and you grew up feeling invisible as if you weren’t interesting or important. When you socialize now, you view every rebuff as proof that people don’t want to talk to you or find you likable. You mostly do things alone but yearn for friends.  You could...

Although biology and genetics play a huge role in our development, the way we were treated in childhood is foundational to our emotional well being. Here are some startling statistics from “Resurrecting therapy: putting Big Pharma on the couch” by Erick Kuelker, PhD (Psychotherapy Networker, Sep/Oct 2019, pp 45-49) showing that when it comes to mental health, we hardly grow up on an equal playing field, that is, some of us really are far more unlucky and unfortunate than others.  Such as, “Someone fortunate enough to have grown up in an emotionally healthy home had an 18% chance of developing depression by middle age. But having just one adverse child experience (ACE) boosted the risk by 50% . . . three to 84% and five or more to 340% greater risk.” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study by Robert Anda). Children of angry, narcissistic, unpredictable or poorly emotionally regulated parents...

Conspicuously absent, that is what I’d call the care, attention and love that’s missing in the narratives of many dysregulated eaters toward themselves. I know this because clients come in talking about all they’re doing for everyone else in their lives and, if or when they shift to a self focus, it’s to talk up their shortcomings. I can almost see the outpouring of energy that they give to family and friends and feel how parched they are for care and attention. This manifests itself in several ways. One is that we may give others what we want but fear asking for (https://www.karenrkoenig.com/blog/giving-others-what-you-want) either because we believe we shouldn’t need it or are ashamed that we do—we give in the hope we’ll get back, rather than ask directly for help, support, care, or attention. The other issue is that people who tend to take care of others and not themselves are...

A client and I spent a session getting to the roots of an upsetting reaction she couldn’t shake after a dinner out. Her intense feelings are typical of what happens to us when events that are over and done with rear their ugly heads in the present. We’re unsettled in two ways: first, by whatever happened to cause our distress and, second, by the immensity of our distress over a situation that we know intellectually is no big deal.  Here’s what happened. My client had dinner with friends at a restaurant she loved but hadn’t visited in a while. She enjoyed her selection—mahi-mahi corn tacos with jasmine rice and vegetables—and ate mostly the fish because she craved protein, thinking she’d take the rest home and eat more of it during the night or save it for another time. Satisfied and pleasantly full, she asked the waitress for a doggie bag. At...

  Common reactions to trauma include flight or flight. But many trauma victims and survivors also react with a freeze response. According to Stephen Porges, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, what we call the freeze response is immobolisation, “…the critical point of the experience of life-threat trauma events.” (“Stephen Porges: ‘Survivors are blamed because they don’t fight,’” by Andrew Anthony, The Guardian/The Observer Psychiatry, 6/2/2019, accessed 6/6/19). He describes it as “… this inability to move, the numbness of the body and functionally disappearing.” When you ask trauma survivors what they felt going through an initial trauma or reliving it through later threatening experiences, they’ll often say they felt paralyzed or dumbstruck. For example, a client whose childhood and marriage had been filled with emotional abuse underwent psych-testing with a large, rather boisterous psychologist who kept firing questions at her without giving her time to think or...

  In order to stop being triggered by painful memories, we need to recognize that our stories about events change as we age and learn. Fortunately, our brains mature and add new features that make us see things in a different light. When we’re 4, we may believe in Santa Clause, but this is unlikely at 14 because we understand and know more about life. If you’re older than 25 and still buy into an interpretation of harsh events you formed as a child, it’s time to update your story to better sync with reality. Our interpretation of events at any age drives our actions adaptively to survive. Childhood interpretations are simplistic, naïve, and lack complex, critical thinking. Because our frame of reference is narrow due to circumscribed life exposure, especially before we enter school, we often know little more of the world than our family’s dynamics—we generalize and conclude that...

  If painful memories trigger you turning to food for comfort, recognize that your memory of an event is a recording of how you perceived it at whatever age it occurred—4, 11, 15. The memory is your immature brain’s interpretation or story of and feelings about the event at the time. The mature brain, which develops in the late 20s, provides a more realistic and valid explanation of human nature and mental health and reinterprets painful events more rationally and accurately. Here are examples of childhood events and their “immature child” and “mature adult” interpretations, meanings and emotions. You’re 7 years old and Dad has promised to take you to the circus—again. You’ve rarely seen him since your parents’ divorce, begged him for weeks to get circus tickets, and are excited about the outing even though Dad didn’t want to go and yelled at you to stop nagging him it. Driving...

Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People--and Break Free Image of Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People--and Break Free Reviewed by: Karen R. Koenig (Originally published at New York Journal of Books) https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/gaslighting “Although this book might be painful to read for gaslighting victims and survivors, it will bring them out of the darkness and into the light, helping them heal . . .” With or without our knowledge, most of us have met a gaslighter or two at some point in our lives or know someone who has been deceived by one. The scary truth is that these master manipulators are often our neighbors, friends, spouses, children, siblings, parents, co-workers, bosses, or political leaders. We may call them difficult, challenging, crazy-making, morally corrupt, narcissistic, power-hungry, or abusive because we don’t know enough psychology to give them the more precise label they warrant. The term gaslighting, a type of psychological...

I often blog about Rapid Resolution Therapy to treat trauma memories, and encourage readers wishing to resolve old issues quickly, or simply improve their lives, to learn more about it at http://www.rapidresolutiontherapy.com. In the meantime, try this practice next time you’re upset or don’t want to feel so emotional. Some background: We often feel distress when we confuse actual events going on in the present with emotion-laden memories of events that are stored in our amygdala. Its job is to automatically warn us of incoming threats by being alert to situations and events which are similar to ones we’ve experienced as fearful and disturbing. Casting an ultra-wide net and using general criteria, it triggers a warning every time an event in the present comes close to being like a scary one from the past. The problem is that when the amygdala gets triggered, memories from previous painful situations flood through our...

Whether or not you’re a fan of Jane Fonda as an actress or an activist, she has a lot to teach us about recovering from bulimia and body image disorder, discovering and expressing one’s authentic self, and achieving self-esteem. At 81, she’s far from past her prime and actually may just be reaching it. Or, so I thought, after watching Jane Fonda in Five Acts (https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/jane-fonda-in-five-acts). Growing up in a highly dysfunctional family, she was a sad child. Her father, the actor Henry Fonda, was far from fatherly and she wanted nothing more than to please him. Her mother suffered from depression and died by suicide when Jane was 12. Jane says that her perfectionism began at a very early age, based on the belief that if she did everything right and flawlessly, she would please and get the love she needed from her parents and others. Toward this goal of...

How do you view your “broken” spots? Are they embarrassing areas of your life that you can’t bear to think or talk about? Do they make you feel less than and as if you’ll never see yourself or be seen as normal? When you think of your mistakes and failures, do you cringe and hope that no one ever finds out about them? I seriously hope not, but if you do, this photo and the explanation that goes with it may shift your view and make you feel a whole lot better about yourself. This beautiful bowl is unique because of its fractures. I love that idea. For example, part of my uniqueness (and, oddly, my professional success) comes from having had eating disorders galore—chronic dieting, overeating/emotional/compulsive eating, and bulimia. At the time, I felt horrible about my behaviors and incredibly defective and broken. Now I look back and proudly think...

Unfortunately, most women I talk to have been victims of sexual assault or harassment at some point in their lives. I’m sure many men have been as well. These events occur on a continuum from minor to major and can do lasting psychological damage. For survivors of such incidents, it’s important that you don’t simply push them out of memory or take on the shame that you are in any way to blame. How you view what happened to you is part of how you relate to your body. Here are some do’s and don’ts for survivors that also need to be understood by those who are close to them. I speak as someone who has encountered sexual assault in various forms over my life-time—an attempted rape in college, in my 20s narrowly escaping being forced into my apartment building by a man who was trying to assault me, a doctor...

I work a good deal with women who’ve been abused emotionally, physically and sexually. When I meet them, they’re usually trying to leave or have just escaped an abusive relationship. Sometimes divorce fails to end the abuse, which continues because they need to have exchanges about finances or children. My goal for clients is to move from victim to survivor to thriver, to go from fractured to healing to whole. Note that though I use “him” for abuser, the “him” could easily be a “her.” If you’re a victim or survivor of abuse, I hope that by laying out the elements of each stage, you’ll be inspired to move forward. If you’re not a victim, you may know someone who is, and through understanding the change process they need to go through, you’ll be able to give them hope and whatever support they need to cope, heal and prosper. The victim mindset involves...

I don’t wish to fall into the quagmire of politics here, but I need to speak out about the dire consequences that happen when children are separated from their parents. If you don’t believe me, read what British psychologist John Bowlby, American-Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth, or American psychologist Harry Harlow wrote about attachment disorders and separation. Their research is downright chilling. Better yet, look at your own young children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews and notice the profound distress they feel when they are—or even think they are—separated from you. Or think back to your early life and consider how enforced separations shaped how you relate to people today. You don’t need to be a therapist to understand how attachments and separations are likely to adversely affect mental health for a lifetime. If you want to delve into some heart-breaking psychology to understand the primacy and legacy of attachment and separation, consider Harlow’s...

Many dysregulated eaters are affected by traumatic events and may not realize it. These events, called “adverse childhood experiences” or ACEs, are, unfortunately, so commonplace in some families and sub-cultures of society that it may not occur to you that they could have a huge, negative impact on your life—or your eating. Though these events happened long ago and you may have minimized, suppressed, rationalized, or repressed (unconsciously forgotten) them, by recognizing them, you can better understand your emotional (and eating) dysregulation and reactivity today. ACEs include: “being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by parents; being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you; feeling that your family didn’t support each other; having parents who were separated or divorced; living with an alcoholic or drug user; living with someone who was depressed or attempted suicide; watching a loved one be physically abused.” (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture In...

Although they may not recognize it, many dysregulated eaters are trauma survivors. I can sometimes intuit a history of trauma when clients see themselves as having something gravely wrong with them that makes them irrevocably defective. For those of you who view yourselves this way, here’s how to get beyond trauma to resilience. The central question you must ask and answer is: Is there something wrong with me or did something bad happen to me? Take a moment to notice if your first reaction is that there’s something wrong with or bad about you. Don’t judge your reaction; simply allow yourself to be curious about it. In fact, what you’ve internalized as self-badness or defectiveness is nothing of the kind. The truth is that bad or, maybe, terrible things did happen to you. Through no fault of your own, you were the recipient of poor parenting through abuse or neglect or mistreatment from...

For both men and women, being sexually harassed or abused can take a toll on your psyche and trigger emotional eating as a way to relieve stress or to numb feelings. Your eating problems may be connected to violations caused by sexual harassment or abuse and eating is how you’ve been trying to cope with your feelings about it. “Harassment can include ‘sexual harassment’ or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature…it can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general…Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such...

I bet all of you have heard of Post-traumatic stress, but I wonder how many of you know about Post-traumatic growth. We so often think of the downside of trauma—depression, hypervigilance, anxiety and flashbacks—but it turns out that there’s an upside to it as well. The term, post-traumatic growth, was first used by Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D. and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D. in 1995 at the University of North Carolina to describe the positive changes that they saw in patients  who had been affected by and were struggling with trauma. If you are someone who’s been impacted by trauma, you might find it hard to believe that there’s anything positive about it, but research tells us that there is. "People develop new understandings of themselves, the world they live in, how to relate to other people, the kind of future they might have and a better understanding of how to live life," says Tedeschi....

One of my clients mentioned that she feared letting down her guard around people because of the many abusive people who’ve been in her life. Although she understood that she could pick more appropriate, mentally healthy people now, she wasn’t quite sure she was ready to. What she said she was ready to do is to give up her emotional eating when these people got her upset. Her comments led me to thinking of how many dysregulated eaters I’ve met are often too trusting and open with those who hurt them repeatedly, but hyper-vigilant and closed off from folks they actually could benefit from being more vulnerable to. Somehow, they got things exactly backward. The fact is that these are patterns learned in childhood that get carried into adulthood when we don’t regularly need either type of behavior any more. Sometimes people evolve to swing between both operating styles so that sometimes...