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SATURDAY January 24, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels January 9, 2004 Healing mother's wounds By John Darling Tidings Correspondent Freud was right. Men are hung up on their mothers and seek them in their adult love relationships, a bind that keeps them from becoming strong, independent males capable of real intimacy and love from the heart. Ashland therapist Glenda Feinsmith conducts her therapy in her spacious office with a high ceiling. Her patients sit, or sometimes lay down, in the comfortable couch. Satsuki Doi | Ashland Daily Tidings It's called codependency, said Ashland therapist Glenda Feinsmith, who is presenting "Healing the Wounds of Being Your Mother's Son" Jan. 17 at Hidden Springs Wellness Center in Ashland. In her work, Feinsmith has men (women too) cuddle a stuffed doll and talk to it as the hurt "inner child" who picked up "emotional imprinting" from mom, not just as a child but in the womb - even in the emotions around conception. "You figure out how your partners show up as an idealized version of your mother - or how she doesn't show up as that," said Feinsmith. "The big pattern is that the son is invisible to the mother. This is what most affects men's ability to have open, honest communication with a woman and become a differentiated (independent) man able to have a sexy, juicy love relationship." Feinsmith, a licensed clinical social worker, has been trained in hypnotherapy, energetic shamanism, breathwork and childhood trauma. She draws inspiration from the work of William Emerson on pre- and perinatal psychology, David Snarch on the Passionate Marriage and Daniel Stacy Barron on emotional sub-self healing. She moved here from New York City two years ago. A boy has a unique relationship with his mother because he's of the opposite gender, living in her womb and bathed in her hormones, Feinsmith said. "That's automatic baggage. He feels everything she feels. There's no way to block it at that age. He takes it on and will bring it into later love relationships. If the mother is depressed, he will be the caretaker, especially if he's the eldest child, and will fear her independence." The invisible son grows up feeling his siblings are more needy and deserve more attention. As an adult, he'll recapitulate his "wound" with a partner who is very busy and "other-oriented." Another common pattern is the boy who never got approval. He learns that love, if it comes, will be from learning to sit still in class, repress and become controlled. As an adult, he's apologetic, workaholic and chooses a dominating partner. We are drawn in love relationships with the type of the opposite-sex parent in order to confront and heal the wound, she added. If we're rebellious or got other adult support as a child we'll be drawn to someone unlike that parent and think we beat the system, but the issues will still be there to be worked out. Until we "become our own parent," she noted, we will enact one of three patterns: shrink to fit (be less of ourselves to please others); expand to dominate or give to receive. Feinsmith stresses that none of us had emotionally healthy parents and that we all have work to do "reparenting ourselves" so we don't try to get our dependency needs met by adult partners, who have exactly the same dependency needs. When we try to get our dependency needs met through a partner, the inner child identifies the partner as the parent, thus signaling violation of the incest taboo. Result: you shut down sexually, a common phenomenon after the first year of a love relationship, she said. Using regressive hypnotherapy, Feinsmith takes clients back to childhood settings where, using stuffed dolls, they may identify their dependency "stuff," finally communicating healing messages such as, "No one is ever going to do those things to you again," "You are loveable as who you are" and "I am here for you always." To heal dependency and reduce defenses, clients are also introduced to "radical honesty," which is telling the complete truth to each other. Uncomfortable? Yes, she said, "but the paradox is if you're safe and comfortable, you're playing to the defense mechanisms and you're not connected." "It's not just cognitive or behavioral work. When people regress to these powerful childhood levels, they deeply lock into their neural network so it causes amazing changes and frees up a lot of energy for healing and creativity." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - ODOT Road Cams