Mindful in the City
Thoughts & Musings
We all experience anger. Anger is an important emotion to learn to understand. Yoon Kane, a Yale-trained psychotherapist and founder of Mindful Psychotherapy, offers useful tips on how to better handle your anger and use it constructively.
Why is it so hard to just forgive and forget? According to Psychotherapist Yoon Kane, there are 3 essential ingredients of an apology.
Having a work life balance is all abuzz these days. Juggling the demands of everyday life can sometimes feel overwhelming. Work-life balance begins from a look within. It is the art of living flexibly. Work-life flexibility is a skill we can all learn to develop. Yoon Kane, a Yale-trained psychotherapist and founder of Mindful Psychotherapy talks about the importance of living a balanced lifestyle.
I recently posted a picture of myself to announce my new business and website. It wasn't the typical therapy photo of a thoughtful pose, in a non-threatening office, with my head slightly cocked in an ”I’m here to listen and not judge" angle. It was a full body shot of me in my usual sheath dress work attire, hips swayed to one side, with the gritty streets of manhattan as the backdrop. There was nothing therapeutic about the image. I chose this photo because it represents who I am today: A strong, confident woman, comfortable with myself. There was a time in my life I wouldn't have posted a picture like this in a million years. I spent most of my life trying to avoid the limelight by hiding in my therapy office humbly offering my over-educated and well-analyzed interpretation of the world.
I don't recall a pivotal moment when my perspective shifted. There wasn't a big "aha!" lightbulb switch that made it all make sense. Reflecting back, it was a process that unfolded over time. It took lot of hard work and self discovery to get to where I am today, to feel comfortable in my body and own my power not only as a successful woman but a successful asian woman. Growing up in a small southern town, I didn’t have many positive role models who helped to shape my view of myself as a unique individual, perfect and good exactly as I am. From a child/teen point of view, I was the ugly duckling that looked nothing like the bevy of swans I was surrounded by. I struggled with an unrealistic view of what I looked like and did not want to accept the fact that I was looked physically different from my peers. I searched in magazines, TV, school. Nothing. I felt alone with my struggles and failures at trying to fit in and realized my attempts only further disconnected me from my true self. By caring too much about fitting in and pleasing others instead myself, I spent most of my energy worrying instead of doing. It was only later in life, through good friendships, mentors and therapy groups, I was exposed to women and men who clearly took the steps to find their inner badasses and generously shared their vulnerabilities with me. In turn, I took the risk of opening up about my own struggles, and finally found connection with people whom I could trust and relate to.
Many mistakenly believe that body image issues are only weight related. Body image is about to how people see themselves. Distorted body image is an unrealistic view of how you see your physical body. Like eating disorders, it is seen most commonly in women, but it's important to know that many men also suffer from the disorder. The way you begin forming your perceptions of your body’s attractiveness, acceptability and functionality starts in early childhood. Body image issues stems from the messages we receive from the outside about how we “should” or “should not” look. In my therapy practice, I’ve treated the most beautiful and successful men and women debilitated from body image issues. It’s about time we break the silence and begin facing our fears, taking ownership of what makes us unique, and bring out the inner badass in all of us.
The most important aspect to remember about being a badass is to accept all parts of yourself. If you feel good about something (your athleticism, writing, art) take the risk of putting yourself out there and allow the opinions, envy, aggression, judgement of others to pass through you like a light spring shower on a sunny day. Remember, to be a BA, you need to consider the following:
The true badass knows that at the end of the day, you can’t expect others to respect you if you don’t respect yourself first.
My expertise in handling emotionally and physically toxic, manipulative people started as a psychotherapist evaluating, testifying, and treating sex offenders and their victims. The most extreme case was when I was asked by the FBI to testify as an expert witness in federal court on behalf of a child victim of sexual abuse by a high profile government official. I had to convince the grand jury and educate them about patterns of abuse and the impact of trauma on victims. I find it helpful to explain the stages of abuse because most people don't recognize the subtleties of abusive behavior - like a frog in slow boiling water - by the time they realize it, it's too late. You can read hundreds of books, but nothing beats gut instinct and experience. Here are the three pronged stages of the abuse cycle:
The set up:
The abuser typically presents as a normal person with a lot of shine: charming, helpful and flattering. You immediately feel "special." Ask yourself, how does this person who doesn't know you make you feel this good about yourself? If it doesn't make logical sense, its a red flag. The set up stage is when abusers "test" your boundaries to see how vulnerable you are to their tactics. They will do things intentionally to hurt you then ask for your forgiveness. If you buy into it, they'll keep doing more and raising the ante.
Maintenance:
Once they have you hooked, a set of patterns are introduced to condition you into a repetitive cycle. Their over reactions and under reactions are set up to condition your behaviors. You have become their narcissistic supply. They will make sure your routines and schedules line up with their agenda. The temper tantrums and cold shoulder is a calculated attempt to control your routines. The nonsensical over reactions and fights have the intention of always keeping you destabilized so they have the upper hand.
Isolation:
This is a strategy to make sure you don't have friends or family who will raise concerns. At this stage, you'll begin to wonder why you feel so depressed and unhappy. The abuser has isolated you to the point you don't have friends who you can confide in to discuss your fears. Additionally, they will have brainwashed you into thinking everything is your fault and guilted you into staying in the relationship. Here are 3 examples of guilt shaming:
1. I'm a victim. Why are you doing this to me?
2. You are a bad person and I will tell everyone the truth (this is when they will start a public shaming campaign-calling friends and family with lies)
3. You have the potential to be so perfect and wonderful.
Solution:
You need a support network. Even though it may feel scary and shameful, it's important to tell close trusted friends and professionals what's been going on. The only way to protect yourself is to disengage from the toxic person and to have the network of support to keep your boundaries firm. Remember, you give up your power when you keep silent. This is especially difficult for men suffering from emotional abuse by women. Men may feel they're being weak by admitting they are being abused by a female. Abusers are equal opportunity predators and do not discriminate against gender, race or age, so don't be afraid of speaking up!
Helpful books on this topic:
-In sheep's clothing by George Simon Jr
-The emotional vampire survival guide by Albert Bernstein
* Disclaimer: This blog is written for the general public. If you need more information or feel you are in danger, please contact your nearest law enforcement or contact a professional.
Today is a serious beginning.
I made a date with my friend Hannah to write for an hour. Hannah was the right person to handle me. She has a killer corporate lawyer part that wrangles my resistance and holds me accountable.
Panic resounds inside my head. Oh NO, I haven’t found a caterer for tonight’s party; Oh no, I NEED to get a run in; Oh No, I NEED to vacuum the cat hair from under my bed!
I text Hannah: “Hey, wanna go for a run instead? Hey, I’m freaking out about finding a caterer for tonights party! Hey, are you too busy to meet? In her firm but sweet way, replies, “I’ll see you at 12:00”
f*&%, the resistant donkey part of me says inside my head.I’m screwed.
I examine my resistance. For the first time, I am curious about it. It just seems so… hysterical. What’s all the fuss and drama about? More quiet voices lurk beneath the hysterical melodrama, screeching like nails on chalkboard — What makes you think you can write? Who do you think you are? What are you going to DO with an hour of writing? Why don’t you do something more productive? Why do you spend time doing nonsense? I listen carefully and realize those are voices that I heard growing up with my Korean family.
There are moments when your own hypocrisy shows up and slaps you on your own doorstep. It amazes me after all this time, even as a mature, professional adult, my parents voices continue to dictate my decisions. Me, a brilliant therapist who so cleverly excises her patient’s resistance day in and day out. I wonder about the parts of me,who grew up absorbing the messages parents and other adults transmitted consciously and unconsciously. I leads me to examine the anxious panic when I engage in the “taboo” things that go against my parents beliefs about how I should conduct my life. Something as minor as taking an hour of my time to do something creative wreaks havoc in my internal belief system.
What’s so BAD about doing something different than what I know? Why is i transgressive to do things that may prove my parents wrong or expose them as a fearful, risk adverse mortal beings? When I think back on where these beliefs came from, I recall the indignant rage I felt as an adolescent. “My parents are SO unfair. They have no idea what REAL life is.”
I am now about the same age as my parents when I was that teen. I too have some fears about the unknown…and the realization that in my lifetime, I may never reach the possibilities that I fantasized about so easily as a child. This is the real reason the voices are so incessant. Parts of me mimic my parents and unconsciously sabotage my success in order to protect me from disappointment and failure.
The real tragedy in this is that the very fear they perpetuated to avoid the pain is what kept them from feeling the joy. What they were afraid allow themselves to know, is that however brief it may be, to enjoy a moment of time creating, loving and feeling joy along with sadness, disappointment and loss are just part of a larger tapestry of life. My present selfcan impart this wisdom to my fearful internal voices: Isn’t it wonderful that you are willing to take the time to create and enjoy things in your life. The other stuff – disappointment, loss, and fear are just part of living.
Feel into all of it. Spend time creating something out of it. Take the time to rediscover your own voice, again and again. It’s the only way to keep your inner spirit alive.
Through discussions, Dr. Kasper and I realized there was a lack of training opportunities for female therapists to explore and understand their own reactions and experiences with desire, sex, power and control. Using our experience, training & research, we found that if therapists increase their own understanding and comfort with these feelings, they will be more effective in helping clients do the same. We created the Women, Sex + Power collaboration to address this need. We co-led a workshop at the 2016 American Group Psychotherapy Association's (AGPA) annual conference on Women, Sex + Power which was incredibly well attended and showed us how hungry women are to explore this topic. We have been invited to conduct the workshop again at the 2017 AGPA annual conference in New York.
"Yoon + Laura were excellent role models for powerful and kind women leaders." - AGPA 2016 Workshop Participant
Women, Sex & Power©: The Madonna, The Whore and The Female Therapist is a collaboration between Laura B. Kasper, Ph.D., CGP in San Francisco and Yoon Kane, LCSW, CGP in New York. Women, Sex & Power training includes both in-person 12-week experiential training groups in San Francisco & New York (led by Laura and Yoon respectively), and a co-led online 12-week experiential video training group. For more information about training groups please contact either Laura B. Kasper, Ph.D. (drlaurakasper@me.com) or Yoon Kane, LCSW (yktherapy@gmail.com)
Comments on Walter Stone “Thinking About Our Work: The false self”
by Yoon Im Kane
How do we help our patients leave the safety of loneliness for the hope of connection? Walter Stone suggests an answer in this issue’s Thinking About Our Work. Quoting K. Newman, Stone writes, “the false self provides the fiction of a good relationship and controls the recognition of the toxic core relationships...serv[ing] the need to keep the true self in a state of repression." The false self sacrifices real connection to avoid the pain of empathic failure.
According to Donald Winnicott, individuals with a false self cannot experience "going on being," an uninterrupted flow of the authentic self. He postulates that a caretaker unable to gratify infantile omnipotence creates the false self. Infants under such care remove themselves from their own experience to meet the needs of the other. They never learn to manage their own feelings, an essential step toward forming intimate relationships.
Stone’s description of the false self poses the question: How do therapists—transferential caretakers—respond to our patients’ infantile omnipotence? To continue "going on being," individuals must experience the full range of feelings and still feel accepted. More often than not, patients who struggle with a "false self" will enter treatment seeking to fix what they believe is wrong with them (or other people in their lives). Session after session, these patients hide behind a veneer of wanting to be helped and wanting to be helpful to others. Their true desires are deeply buried in a reservoir of unmet needs. They seek acceptance and approval, yet their false selves mask fear and an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. Left to their own devices, they are adept at perpetuating the game of peek-a-boo to distance themselves from emotional discomfort.
Individuals with overdeveloped false selves are difficult patients, because therapists are prone to delusions of infallibility. As Stone writes, "we all have characteristics of the false self." We therapists are in a bind, because we must empathize with our patients’ vulnerability, but also put our wishes to help them aside. This means that we must simultaneously feel and manage our relationships. In traditional professions, emotional involvement and management are distinct. Therapists, on the other hand, must lead receptively. It is different from what we think of as leadership traditionally. We must access our authentic selves to tolerate and soothe the unmanaged rage of others. We must abandon our fictional stories and be present with our patients, lest we try to “help” them.
As Stone writes, in group therapy, patients with overdeveloped false selves “see expressions of anger that do not lead to disaster."This may enable the individual to test out, however cautiously, being angry when he is not responded to." Group interrupts a self-gratifying style of relating by repairing old relational injuries. Egos become resilient enough to withstand intimacy. By empathizing with patients’ need for caution, group leaders may guide them to self-regulate and feel a full range of feelings. With more emotional insulation, individuals with false selves can shift from survival/reactive mode to a thriving/responsive mode.
Group therapy can replace past trauma with a current good-enough mother. The patience, persistence, and perspective of a functioning group teach patients to negotiate unmet needs. Seeing and being seen, the group member comes to replace his fictional story with authentic expression of self.
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground” -Theodore Roosevelt
After my usual four mile run at Central Park, I am sweaty and impatient waiting for the elevator. The elevator opens, I walk in and join an elderly gentleman who looks like he has parkinson’s and his nurse. I do what I usually do in elevators, scramble to find my keys to pass the awkward silence. A kind voice encourages me from the corner of the elevator “Keep being persistent, it’s in there somewhere” I look up to meet a amused twinkle in the man’s eyes. I was struck by the tone in the voice that seem to resonate with my emotional state at the moment. I quipped, “persistence is about the only thing that works” He laughed and replied “touche” I watched him shake and shuffle slowly out of the elevator with his nurse holding his arm. I thought to myself, now that’s a man who knows something about persistence.
This encounter left me reflecting on the elements that helped me get through difficult times. As I think back on my success and failures, it’s persistence that led to both my success and demise. With my strong willed personality, I have two types of persistence in my toolbox: 1. The persistence to work hard on things I know I’m good at 2. The persistence to work hard in order to prove someone wrong. I have found that both approaches have led me to momentary success but ultimately left me in state of utter disillusionment.
So is persistence really the thing that helps me get what I need?
My success has been highlighted by my ability to keep doing whatever it takes. This drive came from growing up watching my immigrant parents struggle miserably at life, both personally and professionally. Day after day, year after year, I would watch my parents engaging in the same self- limiting process, even thought they were miserable— their rationale was: “at least we can count on the same miserable life to wake up to every day” They gave up on the dream of doing better for themselves and focused on the hope that their kids will eventually succeed and compensate for their losses.
It wasn’t my persistence that gave me success in life. It was my parents loss of hope that drove me to achieve. Their helplessness and trauma left me with no option other than to develop a burning need to survive on my own. My favorite proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention” describes the need that gave birth to persistence. Today, this very resourceful part of me is looking for a new role. Now that my parents are settled in a comfortable retirement phase of their life, I am confronted with the ultimate question:
What's next?
