You had big plans, and maybe some of them were successful at first, but now your life feels stuck. You created timelines and expectations for yourself that aren’t being met, and you feel like your peers are moving ahead while you’re being left behind. You’re anxious about aging and not making progress. You feel pressure from family and friends, and generalized anxiety is turning into depression.
As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see that pattern all the time. New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s a place that, by its reputation, can make or break you. As the song goes, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere!”
Unrealistic Expectations
But it doesn’t have to be that way. When we construct unrealistic expectations and develop unhealthy belief systems – about ourselves, the place where we live, what our friends and family are thinking – we set ourselves up for anxiety, depression, and eventually a feeling of failure, even if objectively we are very successful. How we view ourselves and the events in our lives determines how we feel about them and sometimes how well we perform. It’s critical to redefine, recreate, and re-envision ourselves and our lives.
Most people internalize beliefs about success from their childhood experiences and their family culture. Oftentimes, these are positive influences that may be taken too far. For instance, your father started his own business, worked hard, and became successful, supporting his family very comfortably. You want to do the same, but you have put upon yourself the added pressure, perhaps, that you need to “make Dad proud” or “prove yourself” to your family. These are the kinds of unhealthy expectations that may only take a few sessions to review and reframe so that you can move forward successfully, with a peaceful persepctive.
But perhaps you had negative experiences in the past: growing up in poverty, making a mistake in your career that caused you to lose a promotion, or low self-esteem from childhood bullying. There are myriad past events, large or small, that could be causing you to pressure yourself in unhealthy ways or that may actually be undermining your success.
Using Therapy to Move Forward
As a psychotherapist, I utilize psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapies. These practices enable me to provide a safe and secure environment that fosters self-awareness and the motivation necessary to make a change.
Psychodynamic therapy is a deep and sensitive exploration of problems and issues affecting your life in order to understand your unique history of thoughts, relationships, and behavioral patterns. Uncovering the origins of behaviors and emotions leads to the potential to resolve them in a safe environment and an ability to make more conscious rather than reactive choices.
Cognitive behavioral therapy offers a concrete approach to uncovering automatic thoughts that lead to specific behaviors. By becoming aware of your thoughts, you gain insight into how and why choices are made in life. Some techniques include relaxation exercises, mindfulness homework, positive thinking, self-talk practices, and journaling, all of which help you positively retrain automatic reactions and thoughts.
In my first session with a client, I encourage the client to share freely, guiding them with expert questions that help me determine the best approach. With the help of these therapies, I will help you find the underlying beliefs that may be causing your depression and your unfulfilled expectations, develop methods and habits of thought to overcome these feelings, and then work with you to redefine where you are now and where you want to be, chart a realistic growth plan, and reconstruct your timeline to help you reach your goals. If you’re in the New York City area, reach out to see how I can help you.