Of course I am avoiding doing the real work I need today and got lost reading posts on LinkedIn. One discussion was about cyber-bullying. Even though several people mention that what you write online stays online, people can’t seem to walk away. There is a difference between having my feelings hurt by what someone writes in response to my post, which has happened, and people posting they have been stalked or sent inappropriate emails. For me it is a reminder that we are on the World Wide Web and we must be very careful about how we participate. Many of the participants in the cyber-bully thread were asking for the owner of the group to take responsibility, but what we forget is anyone can start a group and there is no real management of these public forums unless the person is making obvious threats or inappropriate responses. Some of the described abuses are not overt threats but more belittling comments. I know for myself I have at times felt comfortable in my exchanges and forgotten that this is a public forum and not a private conversation. I try to remind myself to think, edit and consider before I post. I am sure for many of us we are busy and the time for social media only gets added to an already busy schedule.

On a personal level it brings up issues of neglect and the feelings of not being seen. I can get a feeling of urgency about needing to correct the misperception and have to rein myself in. I have to remind myself to tolerate how people see me and remind myself what I can and cannot control. For those of us that have been neglected this can be a very strong triggering point. There are so many articles out now about social media and how it affects people. Social media can portray people having a life-style that is much bigger than it might actually be. Posting of pictures of vacations and parties often end up hurting other people’s feelings, we end up feeling less than. The conversation I have with many people is: I am living on the sidelines of life and I’d like to be in the game but am afraid. The posts and pictures on facebook can make it seem that everyone is in the game but them. I find it important to understand the complex feelings beneath this perception. Often someone will say I am not adequate or am lazy but I think there is a stronger meaning. One that has to do with failed attachment and the pain that accompanies the experience and understanding of this. There is a strong pain of being alone and at the same time a strong pain that comes with being with people. I see the work of therapy as expanding and understanding this idea and usually finding that it is attached to a failed early attachment. It is not a statement defining the person as broken or doomed. This was a statement brought about by the need to accommodate to reduce the feelings of aloneness and separation. This was an adaptive style to dysfunctional parent-child attachment. I look to the works of Bernard Brandchaft and pathological accommodation, the works of Robert E. Stolorow, George Attwood and Bernard Brandchaft for Intersubjective-systems theory and also the works of Beatrice Beebe on infant-mother interactions. You can find more information under those authors about attachment, pathological accommodation and adaptive styles as well as what it means to work within the subjective framework.

As a complete non sequitur I’d like to let everyone know that October 22, 2011, 10am –1pm, I am offering my Building A Successful Private Practice workshop. The workshops have been going great and I am always excited about offering them. For more information and to sign up please go to my Marketing website TherapyMarketingCoach.com/events.html

Licia Ginne, MFT
LATherapists.com
TherapyMarketingCoach.com