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this episode was pre-recorded
as part of a live continuing education webinar on-demand CEUs are
still available for this presentation through all CEUs registered at all
CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox I’d like to welcome everybody today to the
presentation love me doesn’t leave me addressing fears of abandonment the purpose of this
presentation is really to help us help clients increase their awareness of their story including
beliefs about behavioral reactions to situations that trigger their fear of abandonment so how
do we do that well the first thing we need to figure out is what fear of abandonment is and how
can we identify it in a clinical set setting then we’re going to explore the concept of schemas or
core beliefs and these are things that are formed in early childhood you know if you remember
prior classes we’ve talked about early childhood cognition is generally very dichotomous in children
young children don’t have the ability to look at that gray area so these schemas if they’ve gone
unchecked can lead to some very extreme belief patterns which lead us into common traps in
thinking reacting and relationships if your schemas are based on all-or-nothing you either
love me or you’re going to leave me hence the name of the book then your reactions are going to
tend to be more extreme and more all-or-nothing which increases anxiety because then anytime
a person who perceives any amount of disapproval obviously is going to go to that extreme so we
want to talk about bringing it more toward the middle line and helping people learn to appreciate
and love themselves for themselves while they may not approve of the behaviors of other people they can
still love other people so just because somebody doesn’t approve of your behavior doesn’t mean
necessarily that they’re going to abandon you so we’re going to talk about that and then we’ll
learn skills necessary to help people accept their past as part of their story maybe they do
have a lot of abandonment issues and you know some people do and it really is painful it cuts
to the core especially when those abandonment issues occur in early childhood when kids going
what that does so we’re going to talk about that and help people learn how to integrate it into
their present and we’ll learn the skills necessary to acknowledge that their past does not have to
continue to negatively impact them in the present so if they were abandoned when they were a child
you know we need to deal with that however if they continue to expect that every significant person
in their life will abandon them notice I use the word every because we’re still in those extremes
then they’re going that the past is negatively impacting them in the present so we’ll talk about
how to sort of moderate those belief systems how does this impact recovery whether you’re talking
about addiction or mental health issues connection is a basic human need we are not meant for the
most part to be Hermits in the middle of the woods there are introverts and in my husband’s an
introvert he has a couple of really good friends he needs quiet time each day he doesn’t need to
be surrounded by people and he’s fine but I mean we’ve got human connection he’s not going to be
one that’s just going to you know move out to the middle of nowhere I’m an extrovert on the other
hand and I tend to have a lot of acquaintances and a lot of friends I draw energy from
being around other people so just because someone doesn’t have 150 acquaintances doesn’t
necessarily mean they don’t need connections so we want to recognize that connection is a basic
human need when infants are born they are put on their mother’s chest when we embrace each
other whether it’s mother and child or friends or whatever a chemical called oxytocin is released
and it’s our bonding chemical we are programmed we are hardwired for connection and oxytocin is a
very rewarding chemical so we want to recognize this that if people are so afraid of abandonment
that they push everybody away what are they losing as far as quality of life as infants and children
survival is dependent upon the relationship with the primary caregiver so if mom or dad wasn’t
happy if mom or dad was rejecting the young child was pretty much helpless to think about a child
who’s growing up in a family that’s just riddled with addiction and mental health issues and the
primary caregiver or caregivers are completely emotionally unavailable they may be physically
there but they may be so high or so depressed or so psychotic that they cannot attend to the
children’s need what does that communicate to the child feels abandoned the child
feels a sense of neglect for people’s beliefs about other people and relationships were formed largely
based on their interactions with their caregivers so if this child was going mom I’m hungry and
nothing happened or worse yet child was going mom I’m terrified and nothing happened or they
were just given a pacifier and told to shut up then that is they were told they were communicated
to that their beliefs their feelings their wants and their needs were not important so they were
being rejected healthy relationships serve up as a buffer against stress so even if they had all
these negative experiences in early childhood teenage years you know maybe up until
they walked into your office it doesn’t mean it has to continue and how much can they gain from
having healthy relationships with a lot of clients that I work with who have pretty significant
abandonment issues can’t even fathom trusting someone enough to be in a healthy relationship so
we’re going to talk about how to sort of ease into that because you’re not going to say don’t let
your past influence your future and we’ll wave a magic wand and they’re ready to trust people
even once you point out that what happened in the past was largely not their fault or maybe not
even their fault at all they’re still going to have difficulty not accepting responsibility
and going everybody leaves me so what talk about that addressing beliefs that formed as a result
of these relationships the past dysfunctional relationships we can help people create a
new understanding of events was mom or dad or caregiver really being rejecting were you being
abandoned emotionally and physically because of you or because mom or dad just was able to do what
they needed to do to be a caregiver at that point in time they were doing the best they could with
the tools they had but it wasn’t enough to meet your needs so we want to talk about alternate
explanations for why parents and caregivers may have behaved in that way if you have a young child well
an adult now but who was put up for adoption or abandoned by their caregivers at a young age the
a young child was probably very confused because one moment their caregiver was there in the
next moment they were in the system so they were trying to figure out what did they do wrong and why
doesn’t that person love me anymore it must be me because children really can’t see well you
know mom is not able to function as a parent right now or dad is having difficulty coping we
want to help people better understand themselves in their reactions so that when they start getting
this urge to just cut all ties and be like you know what fine you know I’ll take my ball and go
home no problem what does that mean at there’s a certain point in all relationships in all healthy
relationships that you know sometimes people have to distance themselves from one another because
it’s becoming dysfunctional but for the most part, people will in relationships encounter
hiccups will encounter disagreements but in healthy relationships, they can work through
them in relationships with people who fear abandonment there are going to be two extremes
there’s going to be complete compliance and please don’t leave me or complete disengagement
and whatever I don’t care the final thing we want to do is help make people more conscious of
what they’re doing so they can make healthy decisions in their current relationships so when
they get that urge to either comply or disengage is that a healthy normative reaction right now
or are you reacting out of your past experiences the abandonment experience in childhood survival
depends on caregivers a four-year-old left alone for five days is not going to do so well you
know they may be able to scavenge food but once the food runs out where do they get it you
know there’s only so much that a child can do an infant can’t even get their own food
so survival depends on their caregivers and if their caregivers fail to meet those needs there are
high levels of anxiety and I will refer regularly to caregivers who are emotionally unavailable
and emotionally absent in addition to physically unavailable or absent because some parents and I
worked in the field of co-occurring disorders for over two decades and some parents just they are so
overwhelmed and so paralyzed by life itself they can’t even attend to anything else that’s going
on they’re doing good just to be breathing but if they have a child and that child’s needs are
getting neglected and fear of abandonment is a natural survival response when your food source goes away
what happens you start to freak the freak out so this is normal we look at this and say that that’s
that’s natural if a child thinks about the first time you take a child to kindergarten or pre-k
or daycare or whatever it is and you drop the child off even if they’re securely attached what
do they cry because they’re afraid that mom or dad won’t come back and they’re afraid of
this new situation that’s changed securely attached children will you know adjust and then be happy to
see mom or dad when they come back but the point is there’s that initial oh crap reaction meeting
biological needs and safety are key triggers for anxiety at any age so we’re talking about housing
we’re talking about safety we’re thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy if somebody is not meeting the
child’s needs or if the person is not getting their needs met then they may have high levels
of anxiety and I add to the safety concept not only physical safety but also emotional safety
people need to feel safe in their own heads and they need to be free from emotional abuse when
focused on survival people can’t focus elsewhere so if they’re not getting their physical needs
met guess what you know if you take somebody who is in pain who is sick who is hungry and who is
homeless are they going to work on self-esteem are they going to work on relationship skills
no, they’re focused on survival they need to have those basic needs met they need to have a certain
sense of security if they are in a situation that is dangerous physically obviously they’re not
going to be focusing on how can I better myself when they’re worried about somebody coming in
and hurting them physically likewise it’s hard to focus on how can I better myself when everywhere
they turn they perceive someone telling us you’re not okay you’re stupid you’re lazy you’re bad
you were the worst decision I ever made in my life they can’t focus on personal growth when
all they’re getting is these verbal beatdowns all the time so people need to have acceptance if
they don’t have acceptance kind of the opposite of acceptance is abandonment two kinds of extremes
again we’ll bring it back to the middle every stressful situation becomes a crisis the in
securely attached child now you can go back to and read Bowlby’s work on secure and all that kind
of stuff great reading but for the short version of this presentation remember that certs securely
attached children feel anxiety when their parents leave but then they can adjust and they’re happy
to see the parents return in securely attached children feel a great amount of anxiety when
their parents leave and are terrified that mom or dad won’t come back and then when mom or dad does
come back it’s your very very clingy or very very rejecting so with this child that’s in securely
attached it’s just like one to a hundred as soon as something happens that they think they may be
abandoned you see this pattern again in adults who are still struggling with these abandonment issues
that schema that they’ve formed and I’m getting a little ahead of myself that schema that they form
says if you let this person at your site or if this person disagrees with you or if this person
criticizes you they’re rejecting you and they’re going to abandon you so we want to you know check
in with those cognitions and look for trying to make those thoughts a little bit more helpful in
infancy or early childhood if caregivers were away for long periods of time because of work because
of military, if they were in jail if they just chose to be away or if they passed away children
may experience some abandonment issues now if the parents are away because a parent is a way
because of work or military or even jail and the other parent can help the child work through it
there’s much less drama if you will there’s much less issue with abandonment issues in totality
now if it’s whatever parent it is if the pay, if the father happened to be the one, went away
that person may have some residual issues with adult figures in their life that they need to deal
with but they may not know I’m not saying that every child of a soldier or a service person
is going to have abandonment issues that are so not true however if the experiences of the time
apart was not handled in a way where the child felt secure then it could have consequences that
are going into present-day if in early childhood caregivers were inconsistently or unpredictably
physically or emotionally present so think about a parent who has major recurrent major depressive
disorder addiction or is just ill-equipped to deal with a child when I was working at the treatment
center in Florida I had 14 15 16-year-old young women coming in and having babies and you know
what does a 14-year-old know about giving birth and raising a child so it’s not that they weren’t
necessarily trying you know they didn’t have great role models raising them in most cases and so they
don’t have anything to work with they don’t know how to be a parent they’ve never been taught so
it’s not always I don’t want to pathologize or make the parents look like bad people because
I believe that people do the best they can with the tools they have at any given time parents
don’t choose to be sucky parents sometimes it happens but I really don’t believe they choose to
anyhow off my soapbox in later childhood as the child becomes elementary school middle school
age if they’re a poor family fit or they feel like they’re the black sheep they just don’t
have the same beliefs that the other people do they don’t seem to have the same interest that
their family does they may not feel accepted especially if the family’s going no that’s wrong
to believe and invalidate them so going back to that psychological safety if they’re constantly
being told their ideas are stupid they’re wrong they have the wrong point of view and they can
feel very isolated something can happen that ruptures the relationship with the primary care
giver whether it’s abuse or you know some kind of other trauma and introduction of a new less
an emotionally or physically safe caregiver can also lead to abandonment if the child feels like the
biological caregiver chose a new spouse over him or her say if you see where I’m going with that
because if this new person comes in and is less safe is abusive in some way emotionally physically
sexually it doesn’t matter the child is going to feel like they didn’t have a voice the child
is going to feel like the biological caregiver didn’t care and brought this other person in
any way which leads to feelings of rejection and abandonment so what are the reactions
fight-or-flight whenever there’s a threat we fall back to fight or flight or freeze but we’ll
talk about that when there’s a threat our anxiety goes up and we say in the past in these kinds of
situations, if I fought, did I succeed if so then we’ve got fights in the past did I succeed and if
the answer’s no then the response is to flee pretty simply so anger towards someone who’s unavailable
if they got angry and felt like it got them some sort of acceptance from somewhere that might
be the prevailing reaction sadness when someone goes away a sense of helplessness this person
just left me shame or self-anger about feeling needy or about pushing someone away fears related
to rejection and isolation, nobody will ever love my loss of control or the unknown everybody
always leaves see how I’m using these extreme words again and fear of failure I can’t maintain
a relationship nobody wants to be with me because I’m not good enough so the questions for clients
in these situations what caused these fears as a child so when someone starts to have these fears
about a relationship if the relationship starts to get rocking first question is what is it that
you’re afraid of in this situation if you stay together what is it that you’re afraid of if this
the person leaves what is it you’re afraid of and how likely is it that this person is going to leave
based on whatever is going on right now so let’s get some objective evidence here and another
the tool you can use is the challenging questions worksheet in cognitive processing therapy if
you google it challenging questions worksheet CPT or cognitive processing therapy really helps
people walk through the logic in some of their cognitions and identify some know unhelpful
distortions so then after you figure out kind of what the fear is then we say what caused that as
a child in the past when you felt like this what caused that and how was this reasonable or helpful
you know in the past when you felt like this and you reacted in anger what was the outcome and
how was it helpful in some sort of way you know did it get somebody to pay attention to you did
it gets somebody to come comfort you, okay so you were identifying the function of the current
behaviors and then we want to say what causes these fears now a lot of times it’s the same symp
or similar stuff but we could say how are these reactions now unhelpful because as independent you
know adult-type people we can fend for ourselves we can put food on the table we can go to work we
can do we can function independently whereas this is a child we couldn’t you know there were just
some barriers to that does that mean again that we should live in isolation and say well
I don’t need anybody no that’s not what I’m saying what I’m saying is is these fears that
are overwhelming about abandonment that causes people to push others away or cling on like you
know whatever clings on uh are these reactions helpful in the present day you know do you still
need to hold on to people like there’s no tomorrow temperament based on their temperament children
need different types and amounts of caregiver interaction um some children are wide open and
easily overstimulated you know my son was that way when he was born well to this very day um
when he’s awake he is like the Energizer Bunny on methamphetamine I’m he’s just going going
going and talking and talking to himself and he needed a lot of structure and he would get
overstimulated easily but we were able to help him figure out how to handle that instead of
getting mad at him for what seemed to be acting out we were able to help him channel and figure
out when he needed to take a break the introvert may not need as much one-on-one attention with
the caregiver may need a comforting word here and there but they may not need the amount of
the attention that an extrovert may need an extrovert tends to need more interaction with parents with
family with other people because they draw energy and they think while they talk and they think
while they talk with other people so they feel a lot more isolated if they are isolated so we
want to understand the person’s temperament and how they may or may not have gotten their needs
met how they may have been told they were wrong and invalidated when they were younger and you
can hear some of this is kind of going towards Linda hands DBT environment um but what we want to
look at what do you need now how can we create an environment that’s accepting and welcoming
to you now based on their needs and caregivers’ reactions children form schemas or core beliefs
about the world and others so if they state their opinion and it’s squashed or it’s ridiculed then
they’re going to form this core belief that it is not safe ever to share my opinions because I am
always wrong now we’re talking about children here but a lot of times think back for yourself there I
think most of us have at least some all-or-nothing dichotomous thoughts that come in every once in
a while and you know we can catch them but if these dichotomies go unaddressed the person starts
feeling very lost and very abandoned because it’s all-or-nothing important points about children
under 7 from 8 to 12 children are developing alternative cognitive skills they’re
starting to be able to think abstractly they’re starting to be able to see the gray area and
alternate explanations but even you know during that period so zero to 12 children are having
difficulty envisioning all the possibilities so anything that happens before that we want to
encourage them to look at the schemas that were formed and challenge them to examine whether they
are currently accurate and helpful children think dichotomously when they’re that young it’s all
or nothing it’s good or bad it’s not kind of sort of something it is what it is I mean even think
about thinking back to grades that we would get it was satisfactory or unsatisfactory there was
no ABCD F when we were in elementary school and I don’t remember middle school then it was a
dichotomous grading scale you either did it or you didn’t children are egocentric so whatever happens
they say what was it about me that made this happen if mom’s in a bad mood what did I do if
you know Mom is rejecting well that was stupid I’m stupid children are very egocentric so you take
all or nothing combined with all about me and you can see we’re creating the perfect storm of children
can only focus on one aspect at a time when I work with adult clients you know they come in and they
tell me that they had an interaction with their boss he was walking down the hall and he was in a
bad mood and I just knew I did something and so we talked about that and I’m like how do you know
that because he had it he had angry look on his face okay what are some other possibilities what
else might have been going on with him at that point in time and a lot of times we can brainstorm
ideas about a call he just got or where they just left a meeting that didn’t go so well or who
knows what else in this day and time when we’ve got our cell phones and PDAs and everything
there are a lot of things that can trigger a mood besides just whoever you pass in the hallway
children can’t think about those other things that might have triggered the mood they see somebody
unhappy and they’re like I’m sorry um so we want to encourage as adults we want to encourage them
to say all right what are the other possibilities even as children I try to work with my kids
to encourage them to look at alternate reasons why somebody may be acting a certain way children
can’t think abstractly and consider those possible options um even with kids you know knee-high
to a grasshopper, if you’re in a situation and maybe in a store and somebody behaves not kindly
to you, you can talk about that later with the kids and say you know that was kind of unpleasant to go
through what you think might have caused that and brainstorm three ideas my favorite number is
three I don’t know why but brainstorm three ideas for alternate explanations for why that person
may have been in an unpleasant mood if children learn to do this when they’re younger it’s a
a lot easier to transition to as adults schemas are a broad way of perceiving things based on
memories feelings and thoughts basically it’s our go-to perception of what something’s going
to be like we have schemas about everything if you go to church you have a schema about what’s
going to happen when you go to your mother’s house you have a schema about how mom’s going to
behave and what’s going to happen we form these it’s our brain’s short shortcut instead of having
to analyze every situation it says oh I remember this been here before it’s probably going to be
like X Y Z unfortunately sometimes things change and one of the things we see in addictions
treatment as is as caregivers into recovery and really get a hold on it and start working that
a new way of life and sobriety and all that stuff old family members or family members still expect
that old behavior they have that schema that when Jane comes in this is what’s going to happen
because they’re remembering how she behaved and acted in her addictive self so we want to help
people identify their schemas and check them sometimes they’re still accurate sometimes not so
much schemas that trigger abandonment fear center around the cell acceptability is this person going
to like me which is one of the reasons we do a lot of self-esteem work in reducing abandonment fears
because we want to reduce the need for people to solicit external validation we want them to say
I’m all that and a bag of chips and I would love to play with you but if you don’t want to play
I’m okay with that love ability if they were told they were unlovable if they perceived
they were unlovable then in the present they may fear isolation they may fear that they’re not
lovable so they will try to do whatever they can or likewise they will build a lead wall that is 5
feet thick all the way around them so nobody can hurt them they may have fears about their own
the competence you know thinking back to Erikson you never thought some of these theorists from the
past would keep coming up even in current practice but they do if a child going through that period
of industry versus inferiority Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and they felt
like a failure, all the time or they were never good enough the parents never recognized their
positive achievements then they may question their own competence and feel like a failure if they
feel like a failure they may feel they may believe that nobody wants to be around them so they will
leave so if I fail they will leave and fears may center around adaptability some people are not
able to tolerate any loss of control they’re just like that they’re holding on with a death grip to
the relationship to anything that’s going on and it starts to go wonky they are going to freak out
so we want to look at what it means if you’re not in control of everything what does it mean
if you trust that this person is going to do the next right thing if you are doing the next right
thing as well schemas that trigger abandonment fears can also be sent around center around others
if someone is rejecting distant cold or is unable to handle the person’s needs then the person may not
feel acceptable so if they are in relationships with people like this then we need to look at is
Is it you who’s not acceptable or is something else going on with that person that may be making
them unable to deal with anybody else’s stuff right now the person may feel isolated if other
people are absent if people fail to keep promises they may feel like nobody’s ever there for them
competence if other people are always critical then the person will question their own competence
and if others are unpredictable a lot of the time when people who have anxiety about abandonment
they come from situations where other people have not been predictable or if they were they were
unpredictably absent and relationship of self to others if they are afraid about their ability to
relate with others if they’re afraid of rejection if they’re afraid that if they start to love they
will be rejected and then they will be isolated forever if they are afraid of the unknown and they
I just want consistency more than anything and as soon as consistency starts to waver a little
a bit because as we grow things change and people with abandonment issues don’t like things to
change because that’s not predictable and that’s not consistent so they may have difficulty if one
the person starts to change what they do I see this a lot not saying that it’s an abandonment issue
necessarily but when law enforcement officers retire you know because they can retire after
20 years so they may start a new career and that causes a lot of change schedule changes
they’re not law enforcement anymore and the spouse sometimes has culty adjusting to it as
does the retired officer but controllability if the person holds on to relationships and
everything in their life with white knuckles because they’re so afraid if they let go of
control that they are going to disappear or disintegrate then if something seems like it’s not
in their control, it’s going to be a catastrophe so attachment Styles secure if there’s an
emotionally available caregiver the child will seek the caregiver for comfort and guess
what the caregiver will be there and will more often than not meet the need for comfort with the
the correct type of comfort so hungry cold scared kind of following the child’s upset when the caregiver
leaves especially in new situations but the child gets over it it’s not a child that’s going to sit
there and cry for eight hours and then the child’s happy when the caregiver returns in this kind of
attachment the child learns to trust others will be responsive to their needs and validate their
needs a child learns to be self-reliant and try new things but if they fail they know they can
return to the home base they can go out and go well that didn’t go as planned and the caregiver will be
there to say alright let’s figure out what to do next not you are such a failure the child learns
to adapt to a variety of situations because when they’ve been faced with something that’s a little
scary caregivers been there to kind of coach them on and go you got this it’s scary I got it but
you can do it the child learns to deal with stress because the caregivers are there to coach them
or to process it with them afterward because the caregiver is not always physically there but if
you’ve got children you know sometimes they’ll come home from school and they’ve had a really
bad day and you’d pull them aside and go you know what’s going on let’s talk about it so in this way
the child learns to deal with stress and the child learns to have accurate expectations of others
in the secure attachment, emotionally available situation remember children are egocentric so
if mom’s upset the child goes what did I do or oh my gosh I hope mom’s not going to leave in
a secure situation sometimes the parent has to say something like mommy had a really bad day at
work today has nothing to do with you I need to go take a timeout that helps a child understand
that you know what it’s not all about me and I can understand that sometimes moms upset for
something besides me and I can understand that if moms up said it doesn’t mean she’s going to
leave so obviously this is the ideal situation avoidant attachment styles the rejecting or harsh
caregiver the person depends less on the caregiver for security because every time they go saying, mom
mom, I had a nightmare can I come into bed with you they’re met with going back to your own bed and the
caregiver rolls over it’s not oh I’m sorry you had a nightmare let me walk you back to your room
when the child is separated from the caregiver there’s little response when the caregiver leaves
or returns because the kids like what uses that person to me the child learns not to depend on
a caregiver for comfort connection or security now imagine yourself a four-year-old child or a
six-year-old child thinking I can’t count on my caregivers for comfort connection or security
that must be a terrifying place to be and I can see why you would develop some pretty strong
defense mechanisms the ambivalent relationship between the cave caregiver is inconsistent or can bow can’t
talk caregiver is inconsistent or chaotic this is really true in a lot of homes where there are
at least one parent who is battling some sort of addiction or mental health issue so the parent
may or may not be available you don’t know what the good days are going to be you don’t know what
the bad days are going to be so the child may be anxious and afraid to try new things or explore
because they’re like things are going good right now I don’t want to top will be an applecart just
going to sit here and ride it out a child may be clinging and demanding trying to elicit a response
remembering negative attention is better than no attention at all and the child is upset when the
caregiver leaves but also inconsolable when the caregiver returns because you know I was upset
I was scared you went away but you came back and that’s good but I don’t know when you’re going
to go away again and if you’re going to come back so it’s this constant anxiety of abandonment
core abandonment beliefs all people leave so we want to challenge that by identifying exceptions
mistrust people will hurt reject take advantage of me or just not be there when I need them you
know what that’s true sometimes because people have their own stuff so when this happens let’s
look at whether it’s happening all the time and/or let’s also look at what else might be going on
with that person that caused them to hurt reject take advantage or not be there when you needed
the emotional deprivation I never get the love I need nobody understands me cares about me or even
ever tries to meet my needs here how dramatic and extreme that is so one of the things as clinicians
we can do is say if you are getting the love you needed what would it look like what
would be different what is it that you need that you’re not getting once we identify
then we can create a plan to get it but a lot of times other people don’t understand or may not
be able to interpret what you need so let’s help let’s try to figure out how to make this happen
nobody understands me alright let’s talk about why that might be and you know let’s look at some
people who’ve kind of gotten a grasp sometimes with clients with abandonment beliefs nobody
understands me translates to I don’t give a buddy a chance and I cut them off as soon as they become
confused and because they associate confusion with the rejection so we might talk about communication
skills we might work on what it is that people don’t understand and how to better communicate
that and where to find people who have similar interests nobody ever even tries to meet my needs
you know here I would really look for exceptions but I would also challenge the person and I would
say when do you meet your needs what do you do to take care of yourself a lot of times
clients with abandonment beliefs are so freaked out and afraid of being abandoned that they’re
not taking care of themselves either they’re just living and are paralyzed going back to fight
flee or freeze they’re living a paralyzed state of I want to be loved but if I love I’m gonna get
hurt and I don’t know what to do they don’t even love themselves so we want to start talking about
if you had your best friend you know create this best friend persona what would he or she say to
you what would he or she do right now let’s try to help you understand yourself with mindfulness exercises
are really good here because a lot of times these clients don’t understand themselves they’ve got
so much anxiety they’re so afraid and they don’t know where it’s coming from because a lot of
it has been going on for so long defectiveness if people knew me they would reject me you know
not everybody’s going to like you why do you need everybody to like you why is it important that
everybody likes you and failure I don’t measure up and I’m not able to succeed I usually put pull
out the obnoxious quote that if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried and we talked about what it
means to get outside your comfort zone and you’re not going to be perfect at everything you’re not
going to be Michael Phelps you’re not going to be the president of the United States that doesn’t
mean that you’re a failure that definitely doesn’t mean you’re a failure so what things are you
good at what can you and have you succeeded at and go back and look over things like you graduated
high school, not everybody does that you know raised a family not everybody does that so we
want to challenge all nothing’ languages we want to look for exceptions and we want to look
for in what ways can you provide yourself the validation so you don’t fear abandonment you don’t
need other people to tell you you’re okay because guess what you’re telling yourself I’m okay and
before I go on to unhelpful reactions I do want to point out that if we tell people to tell
themselves you know I’m okay that sounds great but if they don’t believe it if it’s not supported
with evidence, it’s actually probably going to slow their growth because they’re sitting there going
telling themselves I’m okay and in the back of their head going you know you’re not so we need
to get that internal critical voice to kind of hush up by providing the person with the objective
evidence of why they’re okay why they’re good enough and that’s a slow process it’s not going
to happen overnight but encourage people to figure out why they believe what they believe and then
you can work from there okay unhelpful reactions fighting with someone you don’t want to leave
me because so the person may engage in dominant sort of posturing behavior aggression hostility
blaming and criticizing trying to tear down the other person to say you know what I don’t care
and you should be grateful that I’m in your life recognition seeking to get attention validation
or approval so if they feel something’s going wrong in a relationship they may start trying to
do something to gain recognition to prove that they’re worthy of a relationship for what they do
versus who they are manipulation and exploitation said lying justifying I did this because you made
me so sometimes we all occasionally do things that aren’t the nicest people who fear abandonment
have difficulty saying you know what I screwed up and they’re more likely to go you made me do
I wouldn’t have done it if you would have X Y & Z people again who are worried about a relationship
is going to fall apart and may also make excuses for other people’s inappropriate behavior it’s like
you know I really hate what this person does but if I don’t make excuses for it if I condemn it
then this person is going to leave in counseling we can talk about the difference between loving a
person and loving a person’s behavior you know I love my kids to death there is no question about
that but some of their behavior makes me want to climb a wall I’m very clear to separate from them
the difference between the behavior that I dislike and them because you know like I said I love them
to pieces and we want to help people start making this differentiation if they don’t do it already
and clinging and chasing is the other fight reaction stalking and messaging somebody 47 times on
Facebook in an hour all these kinds of behaviors and even online bullying those sorts of things can
be fight reactions in response to feeling like there’s a threat of abandonment flight is more
of the I don’t care if you leave so the person will withdraw physically and emotionally and
maybe even numb themselves with some sort of addictive behavior or distract themselves with
something completely different or find a new person just proof that you know what I didn’t
need you because I’ve got this new person now questions for clients about core beliefs
all people leave okay so what does it look like if somebody’s available to you if they
don’t abandon you who in your past left you or was unavailable emotionally now a lot of
I find it helpful for mental health and addiction clients to have them write an
autobiography because then we can go back and kind of review it and identify the core
people at certain stages in a person’s life what did the person who left you do to make you
feel rejected or abandoned in retrospect you know it was hard to see the difference what
was going on back then because you were a kid in retrospect what are the alternate explanations
for why this may have happened was it really you or was it more about them who in your past
has been available to you emotionally most of the time people can point to one maybe two people
who have generally been there it’s unreasonable to expect someone to always be there who in your
present is available to you emotionally you know maybe they’ve only been in your life for six
months or a year but they are available and I say emotionally because you know not everybody can
be available physically all the time we’ve got jobs kids all that kind of stuff but can you pick
up the phone and call them or text them and say hey you know what I’m really struggling right now
what do you do in your current relationships that cause people to leave do you push them away if so
how what are alternatives to pushing them away cutting all ties and just saying fine be that way
I wipe my hands off you if you cling how do you do this in what ways do you perceive yourself as
being clinging and what are some alternatives to holding on with all desperation and mistrust people
will hurt reject or take advantage of me or just not be there when I need them so again what does
it looks like when somebody’s or what does it feel like when someone is trustworthy and safe who in
your past was untrustworthy or unsafe what do they do they taught you this and what are alternate
explanations who in your past has been trustworthy and safe who in your present is available and
trustworthy what do you do to yourself that is unsafe or dishonest that’s one of those tricky
questions you’re there talking about other people other people then it’s like what
do you do to yourself how do you lie to your self or how are you mean and hateful to yourself
how does your distrust of other people or even yourself impact your current relationships some
people distrust their own internal intuition so much that they don’t want to make friends with
other people they’re like I can’t tell who’s going to hurt me and who won’t so just yeah I’m
going to wipe my hands of it all what could you do differently what do you think you could do
in order to start building trust and what does it look like to build trust because Trust doesn’t
just appear it builds gradually emotional deaths deprivation I don’t get the love I need nobody
understands me so again what does it look like when somebody understands you and meets your
needs who in the past failed to meet your needs emotionally and how can you deal with that now
you know it may have been mom it may have been ex-husband it may have been you know who knows
how can you deal with it now yourself so you can put it to rest who in your past is understood
you who in your present understands you how can you start again better understanding yourself
because it’s hard for other people to understand us when we don’t even understand ourselves and
what can you do to start getting your needs met you one of the things was starting to get your own
needs met is to figure out what your needs are and this is one of the exercises I have people do as
a homework assignment they keep track of what is it they want on a daily basis keep a log and then
let’s talk about what common themes were seeing if people knew me they would reject me okay so how
do you know when you’re accepted or acceptable to someone who when you’re past may make you feel
defective are there alternate explanations and how can you silence those old tapes because
that person that statement stays as a heckler in the gallery we need to hush the heckler what
can you do part of it could be talking back and saying you know what I’m not going to listen
or I don’t have time for this right now who’s been accepting and supportive who is in your life
that’s accepting and supportive and how can you start accepting yourself and being compassionate
so some compassion focus training mindfulness work to help people understand themselves and start
being compassionate with themselves understanding their vulnerabilities and cutting themselves some
slack I don’t measure up I’m not able to succeed okay that’s a pretty big success you know what
is what success means success means different things to different people so what does it look
like to you to be successful let’s kind of hammer that out what is it if you are successful what
would be different what in your past has made you feel like a failure what are some alternate
ways of viewing it such as a learning experience or something I had to go through to grow or you
know brainstorming alternate explanations for why people fail they don’t have a response to
sometimes I ask them to kind of take on a flip role and say pretend you’re a parent and
your child comes home and they’ve tried out for the football team and they didn’t make the team
they failed what are you going to tell on what have you succeeded at doing in the past what are
you good at in the present and we really want to pay attention to minimization here because a
a lot of our clients are not good at identifying their strengths what does being successful mean in
terms of your relationship with others do you have to be successful in order to be loved and be a
the good relationship you know obviously you’re going to be successful in a relationship if you’re
but do you have to be financially successful and powerful all whatever you define success as in
order to be in healthy relationships who are three successful people you know and what makes
them successful in your eyes does success equal happiness you can do a whole group on that and
what do your kids need to do to be successful in life you know we want our kids to succeed in us
want our kids to be happy so what is it that I envision my child’s life to be 10 to 15 years from
now triggering relationships the abandoner is unpredictable unstable and unavailable the
an abusive relationship is untrustworthy and unsafe the deprived err depriving relationship the
a person is detached or withholding the Devastator is always judgmental rejecting and critical and
the critic is critical and narcissistic usually a lot of times people replay their past to try to
kind of get it right the second time so we want to look at do you have a habit of getting into
relationships with people who are not safe we can also ask them how do you exhibit these behaviors
in what ways are these behaviors present your current relationships and in what ways were these
present and your primary caregiver relationships behavioral triggers abandonment and mistrust
if somebody starts acting differently they change their behavior in some way a person who fears
abandonment goes oh that’s not good if they’re not getting constant reassurance that’s
that external validation can trigger abandonment fears so again we want to work
on internal validation and why is it that you feel you need constant reassurance from the other
person’s relationships feel threatening so work relationships those sorts of things the
a person who has abandonment issues won’t want their significant other around other people
and they become hyper-vigilant to rejection and disconnection even if it’s just somebody
going I had a really bad day I need 20 minutes and go into the room and shut the door
the person with abandonment issues will likely have a high level of anxiety so we want to ask
how these behaviors have threatened them in the past what are alternate explanations for why this
is happening with this person right now and what would be a helpful reaction to these behaviors
now so this is happening what would be a helpful reaction instead of assuming that the sky is
going to fall defectiveness and failure so if somebody is critical if they have unexplained time
apart there’s absent or inconsistent reassurance or if the person tells them they’re a failure
these or they fail at something these could all be behavioral triggers they could be like I
failed at something I’m not getting reassurance that this relationship fixing to end question how
is this threatened you in the past alternate explanations and what would be a helpful
reaction to this particular situation right now envisioning activity what does a healthy
the relationship looks like presence versus abandonment acceptance versus rejection emotional support
versus emotional unavailability trustworthy versus untrustworthy and safe versus harmful
these are extremes what does it look like to be a middle ground there are going to be exceptions
you know things are going to happen so what does a healthy relationship look like and how to do you
deal with exceptions if somebody’s not always present how can you create this relationship with
yourself that’s the big one and then how can you create this relationship with others’ mindfulness
questions what am I feeling what’s triggering it am I safe right now and if not what do I need to
is this bringing up something from the past if so how is this different how am I different
then I was when I was six or four and how can I silence my inner critic finally what
would be a helpful reaction that would move me more toward my goals and toward a positive
emotional experience summary core beliefs about the self and others are formed in early
life due to children’s lack of knowledge of other experiences and primitive cognitive abilities
these core beliefs are often very dichotomous core beliefs can be formed around events or
experiences outside of the conscious memory identifying and being mindful of abandonment
triggers in the present can help people choose alternate more helpful ways of responding in
the present in secure and loved me don’t leave me are two really excellent books
there are google previews if you want to look at them to see if it’s something that you like
but they do take what we talked about in this presentation and expand upon it a whole bunch
more if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on
YouTube you can attend and participate in our live webinars with doctor Snipes by subscribing
at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox, this episode has been brought to you in part by all
CEUs com provides 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to
counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 used coupon code consular toolbox to get
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If you will, I don’t keep them in the house, but I will allow myself occasionally to buy a small snack-size pack of M Ms, when I’m out or I will get a regular-size pack and I’ll share it with my daughter, so I’m not restricting it.I’m not saying I can never M. Ms again, I’m just not making it available to myself when I might have some unrestricted time, try to avoid buying a bunch of comfort foods and keeping them around the house, and when you’ve got kids when you’ve got family, it’s not entirely possible, usually to not have some of that stuff around but try to avoid having the things that you particularly used for comfort, because if it’s not readily available, then you’ve got to focus on guess what dealing with the emotions.Instead of stuffing them with food, try not to go too long without eating.Like I said earlier, if you go too long, then by the time you get to the food, your blood, Sugar,’s low and you’re just shoveling it as fast as you can initially distract.If you know that you’re getting you’re eating and you’re, like I’m – really not hungry, but I want to eat, take a bath, take a walk, call a friend, heaven forbid get on Facebook.Whatever it is, you can do to distract yourself for 10 or 15 minutes if, after 10 or 15 minutes, you’re still going, I want whatever it is, then you can decide what to do about it.Then, most of the time when people stop and go, I’m not hungry.Let me distract myself.They get caught up in that distraction and before they know it, they’ve forgotten about the craving, and identify the emotions.If you know that you’re not hungry, but you want to eat, then say: okay, what’s going on what’s going on with me? It doesn’t mean that the person is never going to eat when, when they’re upset, because a lot of people do, and is it the end of the world, probably not necessary if they can start reducing the frequency of times that they eat.In response to emotional distress that’s, what we want, we want to progress, not perfect if it’s, depression, what’s causing them to feel hopeless or helpless right now, if it’s, stress, anxiety, or anger, remember our big kind of lump together stuff. What are they stressing out about? Do they feel like they’re overwhelmed? Are they afraid of failure, rejection, and loss of control of the unknown? We’ve gone through those things.We want them to identify what’s going on with them, and then they can make better choices about how to deal with it.So general coping helps them develop, alternate ways of coping with distress.Distract we’ve, already kind of gone over that one.I encourage people – and you know it’s – one of those DBT things – that a lot of therapists encourage their clients to keep a list of things.They can do to distract themselves because it’s not always practical to get up and go on a walk.If you’re at work or it’s, you know two in the morning.So what else can you do to distract yourself? Talk it out with a friend with yourself with your dog? Sometimes you just got to get it out.People who are more auditory will prefer talking it out as opposed to journaling it now.If they talk it out with themselves, they can record it if they want to, or sometimes it’s just better to have a dialogue with themself. If it worked for Freud, it can work for other people journaling.If your clients are inclined to journal, encourage them to write it down.Sometimes just getting stuff out of your head and onto paper will help the feelings dissipate a little bit.So you’re not mulling them over and obsessing over them and getting stuck in those thoughts and feelings.Additionally, while you’re distracted talking it out or journaling, this is also your break.Your stop between the urge and the behavior make a pro and con list of the de-stress, not the eating whatever it is, that’s stressing you out and how can you fix it or what are the pros of this situation and what are the downsides To this situation, encourage them to focus on the positive.You know.If something stressing you out at work, you know you’ve got a big meeting coming up or something you don’t want to do or what it is.You can get stuck on focusing on that or you can focus on the positive that you do have a job.That meeting only comes around once a month. You can it’s time you don’t have to be doing paperwork whatever the pros are for that person encourage them to focus on the positive.If you’re distressed because of some kind of a failure or perceived failure, figure out what you learned from it, whether it was a relationship failure, or maybe you learned what not to do in a relationship anymore. Maybe you learned things that you may have ignored.Maybe you learned what you should have done instead, but how can it be a learning opportunity, instead of somewhere to stay stuck and finally, if something’s making you upset if something’s causing anxiety, depression, hopelessness, helplessness, whatever the negative feeling figure out.If it’s worth your energy to get stuck here, is it worth the turmoil? Is it worth you know having to pacify yourself with food or whatever? It is a lot of times people say you know what now it’s, just it’s, not even worth my effort.It’s not worth moving me away from my goals, because my goal is to stop emotional eating.My goal is to eat for hunger, so I can go to dinner with people and feel comfortable.I can be at a party where there’s a buffet and not feel stressed out that I’m going to go and eat half the stuff on the buffet that’s my goal so is holding on to whatever this de-stress is getting me Closer to being able to do those things and generally the answer:’s no develop alternate ways of coping with the stress the ABCs, the a is the activating event.What is stressing you out and what’s causing the de-stress C is the emotional reaction.Angry depressed stressed, whatever be: are your behaviors? What behaviors or B are your beliefs? Sorry, what are the beliefs that are in there that may need to be addressed? What kind of things are you telling yourself, and, and how can you counter them? Cognitively eliminate your vulnerabilities.You knew we couldn’t get through a presentation without talking about vulnerabilities. If someone is well-rested.Well, the fed has a good social support network, not stretch timewise.Then it will be easier to deal with stress or stressors when they come your way.You’ll have more energy to deal with it, so there won’t be this overwhelming feeling of I just want to bury my head in a jar of peanut butter, be compassionate with yourself.Some days, you know you’re, just going to feel anxious.You’re going to feel depressed.You’re going to get angry.You can beat yourself up over it and you know a lot of people do.Is that the best use of your energy or can you be compassionate? Can you learn from it? Can you give yourself a break and go? You know what I’m having a bad day today and that’s okay, I’m not going to unpack and stay here, but I’m not going to fight.It either helps clients learn how to urge surf help. They understand that, just like a panic attack just like a wave just like a lot of other things in life, it will come, it will crest and it will go out again, so they can sort of identify where they are on the energy of that Urge other tools people can use close the kitchen once I have the kitchen cleaned and you know all the dishes are done and it looks pretty.I hate going in there and finding dishes in the sink again now I’ve got teenagers, so we always have dishes in the sink.But before I had children, you know at seven o’clock.I finished all the dishes and closed the kitchen, and that would be enough motivation for me to not go in there and at least not use plates and stuff to eat.So if we’re saying that we’re going to only eat using utensils plates and sitting and all that stuff that we already talked about, then once you close the kitchen, you’re not going back in, there turn off the light.That also helps so you’re not being attracted to the pretty lights, and you know all the goodies that are in the kitchen to brush your teeth.This is something my grandmother used to do and it works.There’s some research behind it.Minty flavors reduce our appetite.So if you brush your teeth, you get all the other flavors out of your mouth and it reduces your urges to eat because it again it’s clean and fresh. And do you really want to brush your teeth again, and meditate, sometimes just getting in a space where you’re, not obsessing about anything, can help people get past that urge to self-soothe by eating a CT for emotional eating.What am I feeling or thinking about what’s going on with me right now? What is important to me? So if I am thinking I want to eat, I want to you know just dive into this jar of peanut butter, and then I think about what’s important to me.Is it important to me to get control of this? Is it important to me to you know, be able to fit into my clothes in six months or not? So what is it in? What way is controlling my eating habits and eliminating emotional eating important to me, and how does that get me closer to other things that are important to me, and what other things could I do? That would get me closer to my goals.So if the goal is to have improved relationships, be able to feel more comfortable around food reduce the stress around going out to eat, and just around food in general, what else can you do when you are stressed out? Somebody also suggested that adding a blue light in the refrigerator decreases the appeal of foods, which is interesting because yellow red and orange, and browns, I think Pizza Hut – are all foods that increase people’s, hunger and desire to eat.But blue is just a completely different primary color, and adding a blue hue seems like that would be effective, so cool thanks for that.Little tidbit there holiday help, and you know we’re coming into the holidays.So I’ve got to bring that up at every single glass and choose lower-calorie foods.If you tend to get stressed out or caught up or mindlessly eat when you are at family gatherings.Okay, you know cut yourself a break, know that that’s, probably going to happen, and fill up on the lower-calorie foods.The carrot sticks the broccoli, the white meat, turkey, anything that’s available, that’s, not like sweet potato pie or brownies, keep water or low-calorie beverage. In your hand, if you’ve got your hand full, you can’t eat at the same time.So you know if you walk around with a cup in your hand, it helps talk to people.Hopefully, you don’t talk with your mouth open or talk with food in your mouth.So if you’re talking to people, you’re not going to be as inclined to go and get something to eat because you’re wanting to stay engaged in that conversation.Stay away from the buffet, especially if you know that it could get stressful, or maybe you know for me, I turn into a pumpkin at like 7 30 at night.I get up at 4 00, but I turn into a pumpkin at 7, 30 and a lot of times holiday parties and those sorts of things are at eight, nine, o’clock at night, and you know I’ve already turned into a pumpkin.So I know that if I go to those I’m going to be more likely to eat just to kind of stay away because I’m tired and it’s a bad habit.It’s not because I’m hungry.So I know I need to stay away from the buffet during those times we rehearse refusal skills.If somebody says. Oh, you, I’ve got to try it by two.This figure out how you’re going to address that ahead of time, because there’s generally probably a lot of really good foods, and you may really want to taste some, but sometimes people who emotionally eat know if they start eating.If they start eating high-fat high calorie foods, they’re going to want to eat everything.So if I start with one bite of a brownie, I’m going to want to eat every suit that’s on the table.If they know that, then they may want to choose to not even go down that road at that juncture, encourage people to stay mindful of their distress meter before they go back for another helping and ask themselves, am I hungry? Am I just wanting to taste what’s here and how do I feel about that? Or am I eating just because I don’t want to be here and I’m bored and I want to fill the time? Have people keep an index card with their coping mantra and two reasons they don’t want to emotionally eat, so I need to be here.I can do this whatever the mantra is that’s going to get them through the night, whatever they’re.Telling themselves that it’s going to help them plow through and make the right choices, but also two reasons that they don’t want to eat, or they’re going to get around it.Maybe they’ve got something at home that they can eat when they get home eating before they go to.The party may also help prevent some grazing holidays, bringing out a lot of emotions in people.Some people struggle with depression, anxiety, jealousy, grief, and anger. You know the whole gamut during this time and during this time there’s food everywhere I mean starting at Halloween when your kids bring home the Halloween candy, which usually lasts about a week in our house baby.Oh, Halloween candy followed by getting ready for Thanksgiving, followed by doing all the baking or whatever you do, and the holiday parties coming up on the December holiday season.There’s just food everywhere, so it’s really easy to cope.If you will, with stress being overwhelmed with being tired by not eating enough healthy food by binging on unhealthy and soothing food if you will so it’s, encouraged it’s important to encourage people to stay.Mindful of why they’re eating what they’re eating, when constantly bombarded with high-fat high carbohydrate foods, people are tempted to eat to feel calm yeah.I challenge anybody to say that they’ve never eaten and go okay.You know I’m.Just focused on this right now I’m not thinking about everything out here and it feels good um.I’m good now, good, probably not the word I should use, but it does help people distract themselves sometimes when they eat, especially those high-intensity foods.You feel happier serotonins are released. Dopamine is released.You’re, like oh, that’s good.I want to do that again or you just feel numb.You can get into a zone where you’re just eating and not caring about it’s.Not that you’re feeling calm, you’re just not feeling anything, and a lot of times when people get into that zone.They’re not tasting the food either.They’re just kind of on autopilot for emotional eating, like most other escape behaviors.Never addresses the underlying emotions and their causes, so we need to look at them.Are you feeling anxious? Are you feeling jittery? Are you feeling depressed because your blood Sugar’s low, because you’re nutritionally deficient because you’re not getting enough sleep or because there’s something cognitive going on, or all of the above emotional eating, often results in physical issues like weight gain Poor sleep and reduced energy weight gain, are you know in and of itself a few pounds here and they’re not a big deal, but some people can start emotionally eating to feel better.They gained a lot of weight. Then they start feeling less energetic.It starts being harder to move around.They get to the point where they are clinically obese.Then they’re going.I’m never going to take all this weight off.They feel hopeless and helpless.You see where this is going, so they eat some more.Can cause poor sleep apnea, it’s hard to get it’s also hard to get comfortable.Sometimes, if you’ve eaten a whole bunch of food right before you go to bed, you know your bellies are all full, and little you wake up.The next morning and your belly are still awful, which means you probably didn’t, sleep very well the night before and emotional eating often results in reduced energy because the foods we binge on the foods we eat for self-soothing often end up causing a sugar Crash some people try to undo emotional eating by restricting other calories which can lead to nutritional deficits and more cravings. I had a girlfriend when I was in high school and you know think back to I don’t know if they still do it, but when we were in high school there was always some kind of candy sale going on and she would always forgo all Other food, so she could have two chocolate bars each day and you know we’re not going to get into the all the other issues surrounding only eating two chocolate bars.But the point I’m making it right now is the fact she wasn’t getting protein.She wasn’t getting it.You know most of her vitamins and minerals and stuff that her body needed to make the neurotransmitter.So she could feel happy and she was contributing to a sugar crash, but I also know that it’s common around the holidays for people to do this.They’ll let go all day without eating because they know they’re going to a party tonight and there’s going to be a lot of really good food doing that once in a while.Not a big deal doing that 10 or 15 times in a month could start to have problems.Emotional eaters need to first find a way to stop before they eat, so, whether it’s writing in a journal or adding.There are a lot of apps on your phone that you can put your food in, even if you’re, not writing about your emotions and your cravings and all that kind of stuff.Sometimes it’s enough to make people stop before they reach. For the food – or you know, kind of an extreme way to go is to not keep pre-processed or prepackaged foods in the house.So anything that you’re going to eat you’ve got to make second identify the underlying reason for your eating figure out.Do I generally eat in response to and then address the thoughts and emotions leading to the urges?So if you figure out the underlying emotions for your eating or your depression, then what thoughts are maintaining that depression? And how can you address it once you address the underlying issues, some of the emotional eating will go away, but some of its habits?We’re going to have to break that habit and, throughout you know, the past couple of decades of working with people.My experience has been the majority of the time people don’t want to hear.Well, once you deal with your emotional issues, the emotional eating will go away now.They’re there because they want to stop that behavior right now.So, yes, we need to work on all the underlying issues but give them a tip or a trick or a tool whatever you want to call it to use before they walk out of your office after every single session.That way, they have something else they can put in their toolbox and feel more empowered to have control over what’s going on with them. And what’s coming their way, having the knowledge of what and why is 80 of helping them get to the recovery point now, if there’s co-occurring or if the eating issues are more than just emotional eating, if there’s, the person meets The criteria for binge eating disorder, bulimia or anorexia.There are a lot of other underlying issues they’re going to have to be dealt with.So I don’t want to trivialize that, but I do want people to feel like they’ve got some hope over what’s going on.Are there any questions? 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