In this video I discuss how therapy can increase emotional intelligence by helping us understand how we learned to hide our emotions, often even from ourselves. This learned emotional avoidance might have been adaptive in childhood but in adulthood keeps us from feeling fully alive and impairs our capacity for deep intimate relationships. Through working with a skilled therapist we may be able to understand and update our old defenses (adaptations) and then be able to have more capacity to feel your feelings (emotional awareness) without feeling scared or overwhelmed.

How does our innate capacity for emotional intelligence first become impaired? Well, parents are often threatened by the contents of their child's mind. This is most powerfully true around emotion. It is so common parents to feel destabilized by their child's feelings (or even thoughts), that they find ways to train their child to simply ignore what is going on inside. If a child is able to elicit more care and connection (and perhaps even avoid punishment), but ignoring their authentic feelings, thoughts, or needs, then they will do so. Then as adults they might find themselves having difficulty knowing who they truly are--what they feel or want or are passionate about. They might feel a bit dead inside, or bored, or simply shut down emotionally. Emotions that do arise might feel particular overwhelming. Why? Because they are associated with the danger of rejection, and therefore set off alarms that make it difficult to self-soothe.

So when we enter psychotherapy, we need to be patient with ourselves around learning to access our authentic feelings, knowings, memories, etc. Our system has simply been wired to ignore those things. So if your therapist asks you a question and you say, 'I don't know"...don't stop there! Allow your therapist to teach you a mindful way of tracking yourself so that the information about who you truly are can start to flow again.

For the full video, click here:    • What is Good Therapy?