Tag: LCSW

Interesting Picture By now you must realize the picture in last week's My Machberes column of the Satmar Rebbe and the Belzer Rebbe meeting...

In my last article I had mentioned that often one of the symptoms of autophobia, a fear of abandonment, is that as adults people suffering with this condition may become extremely sensitive to rejection.

In part one (Family Issues 04-29-2011) we mentioned that often a symptom of the anxiety disorder, the fear of abandonment, is a strong need to be in control. That is because the person suffering from the disorder has lost someone in their past - due to separation, divorce or death - and may unconsciously blame themselves for the desertion.

The fear of abandonment, also known as autophobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by an acute fear of being alone. Often, one of the symptoms of this particular anxiety is a strong need to be in control. This is because one has previously lost someone close through separation, divorce or death and may unconsciously blames his or herself for the event. When this happens, any type of separation may traumatize the person, even the marriage of his or her own child can be viewed as a life-threatening event.

Children who grew up feeling shameful for the most part will have also grown up without someone to talk to about how it made them feel. Shame is one of the most destructive feelings there is. It is a feeling that something is wrong within us and has a negative affect on a child's self-development.

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She: We have three children, a home and friends. Finances are not an issue: Yossi leaves money for our home, our family and for me, without my having to ask for it. The children are well dressed, well fed and healthy - at least physically. The house is clean, the laundry done, supper is on the table. I use every bit of energy to make our home the center of my life. But somewhere along the way I lost my marriage.

Zelda woke up with a start, the silence eerie and disorienting. She has been waking up this way for almost a year - since shortly after Ruchy and her husband left for Eretz Yisroel. "I can go back to sleep," thought Zelda. But she lay in bed, straining to hear the sounds which for so many years began her day. The banging of bathroom doors, the shouting for lost and then found shoes, tights and seforim, the noise of phones and doorbells ringing, the house filled to the brim with comings and goings.

Sometimes a few sessions of marital therapy can solve problems that were festering for years. The married couple have often locked themselves into such a struggle; they need help to simply untangle the knot. This has a lot to do with the high level of emotion they are feeling - just think of the expression "I am so angry I can't think straight. The husband and wife often cannot think logically or clearly. Every issue between them is filled with layers of anger, hurt, betrayal and fear that has built up over the years due to miscommunication.

In-laws: It's All Relative, a new book by psychiatrist Dr. Abraham Twerski and Leah Shifrin Averick, LCSW, offers insights into common issues affecting all in-laws. They include the first meeting between the new couple and his parents and hers (machatonim), what to call the in-laws, making wedding plans, divided loyalties over where to spend holidays, sibling-in-law relationships, gifts and monetary aid, and others.

In-laws: It's All Relative, a new book by psychiatrist Dr. Abraham Twerski and Leah Shifrin Averick, LCSW, offers insights into common issues affecting all in-laws. They include the first meeting between the new couple and his parents and hers (machatonim), what to call the in-laws, making wedding plans, divided loyalties over where to spend holidays, sibling-in-law relationships, gifts and monetary aid, and others.

In an online article, Lisa Twerski, LCSW, identifies different types of tactics often used by abusers. This is only a partial list, but recognizing...

Traumatic events are typically unexpected, and uncontrollable. If in the past a person experienced a traumatizing event - even if it's been long forgotten - the brain will remind them of that time, should something similar take place. Memories to traumatic occurrences lie dormant in the recesses of subconscious memories.

A few years ago I was invited to be a guest on a talk show. An interesting question came up from a young man who wanted some information on the topic of in-laws. He wanted to know if I had ever known of a couple divorcing because of their in-laws. My response was that although divorced people may blame the in-laws for the marriage failure, in most cases this does not happen directly, but indirectly- YES!

You see a small plastic bottle of Visine or other brands of eye drops in the room of your teen son or daughter. He/she seems to have lingering colds and reddish eyes. You must have misplaced some cash in the house (several times, in fact) over the past few months. Your adolescent son or daughter begs off family simchahs, and his/her last report card was a disaster. Obviously, any one or two of these factors could be completely harmless. But in the aggregate, they are often signs of impending substance abuse issues. Parents of at-risk adolescents need to become more knowledgeable about these symptoms.

In marriage, money tends to mean different things to different people. Unfortunately, for some, money repre­sents more than economic security. It becomes a symbol for CPR — Control, Power and (self) Respect.

I teach a graduate course in trauma and family crisis. The question most often asked by students is, "Why are there so many families in crisis compared to the families our parents grew up in?" Whenever changes in a support system occur, making it no longer secure and defined, our ability to cope, adapt and problem-solve will be impaired.

As a child you had two basic needs. One was to be happy and loved, and the second was for your parents to be happy and loved. If you grew up and these emotional needs were not met, then your unconscious mind seeks a partner to help you meet those needs. The process will take place by recreating your childhood wounds in your present marriage. This way you can finish unfinished emotional business and move on with your life.

Marriage, by contrast, is an institution of close, complementary cooperation. Its success or failure depends upon the the couples, ability to work together as a TEAM. However, in order to accomplish this, we first have to understand that in marriage we carry our own emotional baggage along with us — some good and some, not so good. The not-so-good seems to stand out a lot more.

Marriage is not like every other human relationship. It brings two incompatible people together for the purpose of healing and growth. The degree of healing and growth will depend on many factors. One such factor is the ability to give love. Love is the foundation of married life. Even though many people talk about it, there is a great deal of doubt as to whether they really know how to give love.

The Jewish community has never been as challenged as it is today. I believe that many of our problems could have been avoided if we took a more proactive approach. I recently met with a doctor who had just married off his first daughter. He wanted to know what exactly pre-Marital enrichment is. I responded by explaining the concept of self awareness, that it's not possible to know someone else if you don't know who you are!

Almost every profession has what we call the tools of the trade, and with marriage it isn't any different. If you're single, engaged or a newlywed, you need to have the tools it takes to build a successful marriage. Yet for many of us even when the chosen and kallah classes are over, they still find it difficult to use the tools that they have just learned.

The Dubna Magid in Safer Hamidos, states that "love is one of the most important midos in a person". Hashem has given us a most powerful energy source with the potential to grow and heal unresolved issues of the past. But in order to activate this energy source we must first try to understand the levels of complexity love has to offer.

The Torah tells us that we are put onto this world to give, not just to take, as difficult as this may seem for some people. Married life provides a unique opportunity to give to another person. When husband and wife are willing to give whatever it takes to make each other happy, they will move onto the next stage called “love.” This is where the Shechina (Divine Presence) rests.

Dear Moishe, I enjoy your articles in the Jewish Press very much. I am very much for trying to prevent problems through education as well. I am a social worker in a frum agency for individuals with developmental disabilities. As tremendous strides have been made over the past decade for this population challenges arise along with the opportunities. For example - some individuals get married and may have an IQ of a 6 or 7 year old child.

Marriage demands the best in maturity, but this does not mean that couples are necessarily mature to begin with. A factor of greatest importance in the success or failure of any marriage is the emotional maturity of the partners. Marriage is a cooperative venture involving two people who must make certain sacrifices for the partnership and for each other.