What does vulnerability mean to you? Is it part of being human, something to acknowledge and embrace, or do you find ourselves shying away from it?
Vulnerability is part of what connects us to others. By being open, revealing something of ourselves and seeing that in others, we build connections. It’s not a given and we all have to feel that it’s appropriate to be open and vulnerable. We can all think of a time when we have been vulnerable, and it has felt challenging. Whether we felt physically or emotionally unsafe, we know that it is something that we wouldn’t chose to return to and might find it hard to think about.
When it is hard to be vulnerable
From an early age we know what it is to feel vulnerable, because we depend on others for our safety and wellbeing. These formative relationships are how we develop a sense of how we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Do we learn that we connect through being vulnerable, or that is it is to be avoided? Are we able to feel safe, when we feel vulnerable, or does it feel that being vulnerable isn’t possible or acceptable? Being vulnerable and it not feeling safe or acceptable, builds the sense that it is best avoided. The fear of being vulnerable, stops us.
The case for vulnerability
The awareness that we build relationships with others through vulnerability means that finding it hard to express our vulnerability can impact our capacity to connect. Do we let people see us or are we wary and therefore feel less connected? Building trust between people is about the interplay between them, allowing openness when it feels safe. By understanding that we can be vulnerable, we can build closer and deeper connections to others. We can be open with them, and they with us.
Being vulnerable in relation to others is about being able to share our emotions. When we have developed a sense that being vulnerable isn’t possible how do our emotions get expressed? Do we hold them in, deny their existence, hope that they go dormant, or act them out through behaviour? Holding on to our emotions, in effect a defence against feeling vulnerable, is challenging. It is hard to feel full of emotion and feel unable to express it. At this point vulnerability feels impossible, however desirable it might be.
Being able to express one’s emotions and form deeper connections with others can feel beyond the realms of possibility. It can be desirable, yet unthinkable, leaving the feeling that one is stuck in a pattern that repeats throughout life. The development of the capacity to be vulnerable is part of how these patterns can be challenged. Old habits and ways of being can shift, and one can feel able to experience both one’s own emotions and those of others.
Being vulnerable in psychotherapy
In talking therapy there is an understanding that one is going to be exploring emotions and that this can bring with it strong feelings of being vulnerable. The challenge that this presents is understood and as therapists it is about building a working relationship with a client that can make being vulnerable possible. The therapeutic relationship is one in which vulnerability is always possible, and that the thoughts that make it feel difficult can be explored. The therapist is not only bringing their knowledge and experience to the relationship, but is also invested in the individual.
David Work is a BACP registered psychotherapist working with adults, offering long term individual psychotherapy. He works with individuals in Hove . To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with David , please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Further reading by David Work –
Trauma and the use of pornography
Subjective perception, shared experience
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