Emotional Holding and Inner Strength

 

Depth Psychotherapy: Understanding Emotional Holding

 

In the realm of depth psychotherapy, the emotional holding often leads us to necessary discomfort. This may sound counterintuitive—especially in a culture obsessed with quick relief and emotional "fixes." Nevertheless, if we hope to truly recover from eating disorders, trauma, or long-standing emotional pain, we need to understand a crucial distinction: the difference between comfort and holding.

Both have value. However, each serves different purposes—and only one supports lasting transformation.

Yes, you can find yourself on the verge of or actually in a destructive scenario and heal your way out.    * picture information see below.
Do you have the same old fight using the same old words while feeling the same old engulfing passions? Perhaps,  the people you engage with are different people but the scenarios and feelings are almost identical.

Your boyfriend or partner or spouse (or third such person in your life) is being impossible, cruel, thoughtless, and inconsiderate yet again. You are broken hearted or bereft or furious or pleading or raging with fury yet again. You feel you are once more in the inevitable emotional place that is all too familiar while this intimate of yours proves to you that relationships don't change and that all intimates are alike.

A young woman with very little money ranted about wasting her last therapy appointment complaining about how her support group was ending. She spoke in broken sentences. She tried to overwhelm her fear and grief with rage. *

"Why do I feel ashamed of myself because I was abused?  I know it was not my fault. Why do I feel the need to hide it, even from my trusted therapist?" asks a reader.
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