Do you remember the Bee Gees? They were the singers in John Travolta’s breakthrough movie Saturday Night Fever. They sang, “How do you mend a broken heart? How does a loser ever win? How can you stop the sun from shining…?”

Truer words were never spoken or sung more elegantly that when the Bee Gees sang this song. People of any age who know this pain will instantly identify with it. Take the young man or woman who believes that they have found “the one;” or, “their life mate” only to find that he or she doesn’t love them, or finds that they have been secretly dating their best friend?

Maybe you believe your lover left you because you are not pretty/handsome enough (see my section on “Body Image Issues” and “Body Dysmorphic Disorder”); maybe you have trust (hyperlink – coming soon) or Self-Esteem Issues.

Did you set yourself up again with the “wrong person?” Many people find that they repeat the same pattern; they are attracted to a “kind” of a person without knowing that they are repeating this pattern, and they end up feeling bitter and believing that all men/women are ____________________________ (you fill in the blank with something relevant to you).

This reminds me of The J. Geils Band with their song, “Love Stinks.”

It doesn’t have to!

If you are trying to mend a broken heart you are in good company. It happened to me twice when I was 19, and it took me 5 years to recover, and I suffered with a Major Depression. But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. I learned from my experiences. When I was 19 I didn’t have anyone I could really turn to and there was no one to mentor me. Psychotherapy wasn’t as advanced as it is these days.

A broken heart is a trauma (see trauma section).

It may not be like 911, or like childhood sexual or physical abuse (see section childhood sexual or physical abuse) but it can still be very traumatic.

Here are some other love problems people I have treated with psychotherapy have found:

• The wife/husband who finds love letters in their partner’s drawer, or credit card receipts from different hotels that he/she was never at, (See Infidelity Section). Betrayal of trust  (hyperlink – coming soon) in our society is rampant. First marriages end in divorce about 50% of the time; second marriages end about 65%.

• You don’t feel like trying again. So why do it?
  • Because loving is the most natural thing to do
  • We are communal people and as Barbara Streisand sang, “People, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”
  • That’s how we are hard wired from birth.
  • As babies we need our caretakers or we literally die.

• When we are lucky, we have parents who provide us with secure attachments and teach us how to relate to ourselves (our inner feelings, and coping with the difficult ones); and our outer relationships.

• When we are not so lucky, we develop attachments that are insecure; so anxiety, dependency, depression may occur (see sections on anxiety and stress; and depression and sadness). Then there are the most difficult kinds of attachments; the disorganized ones. See the section on dissociation for this group of people.

• This may be one reason we continue to repeat old patterns. Have you ever heard the phrase, “You remind me of my mother/Father/Brother/Aunt Tillie” (Tip – Immediately ask, so how was your relationship like with good old Aunt Tillie? If it wasn’t so good be careful)

• Right now we’ll focus on the people who grew up with insecure forms of attachment, so they never learned to relate well, to choose an appropriate partner, to find ways of noticing when things aren’t going right. The last thing in the world you don’t want to have happen is to feel betrayed, and suffer a broken heart.

Here’s a checklist to consider. If you have many of these issues for more than a month call me for help (except for the last one!):

• You can’t get him/her out of your mind. ____
• You keep wondering what you did wrong. ____
• You believe you are worthless because you were “dumped.” ____
• You believe that you are unlovable. ____
• No one will ever love you again. ____
• Your broken heart makes you afraid to mingle in social situations. ____
• Your broken heart makes you afraid to ask someone out or accept being asked out. ____
• Your broken heart makes you fearful that you’ll have nothing to say or that you’ll say something stupid. ____
• You feel like killing yourself (DON’T WAIT ONE DAY. CALL ME IMMEDIATELY)

In my opinion, the best form of treatment for this problem is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). I train therapists in this form of treatment, treat clients who have broken hearts or other forms of trauma with it, lecture internationally on it, and write journal articles and a book on EMDR (See section on EMDR)

Informational Solutions for healing a broken heart:

• Believe that your heart can mend!
• Believe that you are worth it.
• Work on what you could do differently.
• Choose a different kind of partner.
• Don’t let yourself get into a pattern of self-hatred, or hating the person who broke your heart (I know that this suggestion is difficult, but if you hate, you hate yourself also).
• Take some time before getting back into another relationship (you have to mourn the present one); but don’t wait forever, otherwise you may get stuck in grief and bereavement (see section on grief and bereavement).
• “If you don’t believe it, fake it till you make it”
• Find someone who will treasure you. If you don’t believe you deserve to be treasured start here!
• If you think that you are the best thing in the world, work on humility.

If you find that the above solutions are not working for you and you feel you want to talk about it further, contact a psychotherapist such as myself. I may be able to help you better work through your feelings of a broken heart.

You can reach me through email at mdworkin@optonline.net, or you can call me at (516) 731-7611

Nothing is ever one sided, but we can work on the strategies you need to value yourself, communicate effectively, and learn how to trust again; this time, hopefully forever.

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