We all know healing is a marathon, not a sprint. We start when we take the FIRST step. Good news... Since you are still reading, you have taken the first step! Some of you have been running for a while and have come a good distance. But now, maybe you feel stuck or maybe you want to "put wheels on your recovery".  Whatever the reason you are here If you are ready to take it to the next level, read on...

My name is Don Carter. I am an Integrative psychotherapist in long-term personal recovery from addiction and depression. I am also the author of the bestselling Thawing the Iceberg Series. I wrote the six-book series to pay forward the personal, professional, academic, and spiritual blessings I have been given on this recovery journey. 

The growth of Serenity Cafe Academy and the magnitude of options for the courses have become overwhelming to many people. This inspired me to take it to the next level. I desire to join some of you on your journey by offering optional counseling and coaching services. Sometimes there is more than one "Elephant in the Living Room!" Sometimes we need help to drive them out.

Others may not need much additional help, if any. You may already be in counseling or coaching, may have lots of experience in therapy and recovery, or may even be a trained therapist or coach (many of us are "wounded healers"). The following "Elephants" are the targets for my Thawing the Iceberg Series. These elephants are huge and sooner or later can no longer be ignored because they will not "go away" on their own:

Depression & Anxiety 

Addiction & Codependency

Complex-PTSD & Adult-Child Syndrome

Obsession & Compulsion

Trauma & Attachment Wounds

Abandonment, Shame, and Contempt

My best teachers have been the thousands of clients I have had the honor of working with over the years. The courses in my Serenity Cafe Academy are designed to help people heal from long-standing emotional wounds, often rooted in growing up in a less-than-nurturing or outright dysfunctional family.

The most obvious cases of emotional wounds come from emotional, sexual, or physical abuse. These traumatic wounds result from what someone did TO you. Attachment wounds, which can be just as devastating to a child, come from what someone did NOT do FOR you. 

Children have developmental dependency NEEDS. They depend on their caretakers to meet these needs. When these needs go unmet it causes pain. At birth, we have a primal need for connection (without it we die), and a primal fear of abandonment (if abandoned we die). 

The nervous system has built-in alarms that go off to signal when one of these needs arises. That's why the signal changes from a cry for help (crying) to a cry for rescue (screaming) when the need goes unmet. In addition to the need for safety and protection, these are the primary emotional dependency needs.

TIME: To a child, (quality time equals LOVE) Both parents need to spend quality time with each child. "Quality" is determined by meeting the following needs.

ATTENTION: This is a verb meaning to ATTEND to the child which implies the caretakers are attuned to the needs of the child and help meet those needs. Proper (Attention equals WORTH) or value.

AFFECTION: A warm cozy emotional climate with lots of hugs, kisses, pats on the back, nurturing, and safety. (Affection equals APPROVAL)

DIRECTION: Structure in the form of GUIDANCE and DISCIPLINE. The best direction comes from proper role modeling and is backed up by consistent limits and boundaries.

When a child does not get their need for safety and protection met, because they are emotionally, physically, and/or sexually abused, they develop the emotional wound of abandonment, an emotional infection of shame, and an emotional scab of contempt for self, others, or life itself.

Moderate-to-severe cases of abandonment, shame, and contempt (for self or others) can also come from situations in which a child does not fully or consistently get their emotional dependency needs met, such as when the child lives in a shame-based family system. 

In such families, the children get messages of disapproval through constant criticism rather than messages of approval and warmth. A shame-based family system is characterized by the parent’s use of shame to provide direction. Emotional wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt create core beliefs about not being enough such as:

Not enough quality TIME = "I am not lovable enough" 

Not enough ATTENTION = "I'm not worthy enough"
Not enough AFFECTION ="I'm not enough, I don't measure up."

Not enough DIRECTION = "I'm not competent, not good enough."

Once core beliefs are accepted, the child then lives as if they are true! These beliefs about self, others, and the world in general become our mental filters that collect evidence that they are "true" and delete evidence to the contrary.

The emotional wound (Abandonment), infection (Shame), and scab (contempt) create a free-floating mass of pain I call the False Self just beneath the surface of awareness. It feels like who I am because the pain is emotional by nature! 

We learn to cover up our private image (False Self) with a public image (invented self) to avoid more abandonment, shame, and contempt from others. Thus, we abandon our inner world of self by putting on a mask. I believe this is where what has been called Imposter Syndrome comes from.

Since we cannot, or do not, "go inside" we cannot generate comfort and relief from the inside, we cannot expose who we feel like we are to ourselves or others, we must look to something in our outer world for comfort and relief - enter the addictions and compulsions at the tip of the iceberg.

"Wounded People, Wound People"

When parents do not meet the needs of their children it is not usually because they don’t love them. (I say ‘usually’ because there are those cases that one cannot understand, accept, explain, or excuse for any reason.)

I believe most parents do the best they can to take care of their children, given the internal and external resources they possess. I cannot count the times I have heard parents say, “I try hard to make sure my kids have it better than I did!” 

This speaks very loudly to me. It says that these parents are familiar with unmet dependency needs and they want better for their kids. But they were raised by their parents, who were raised by their parents, and so on. They cannot give much more than they have been given, even though many do find a way to do somewhat better for their children.

So, I am not here to throw parents under the bus. On the contrary! My clients have been children, teenagers, soon-to-be parents, parents, and grandparents. I get it! Wounded people, wound people.

The Intergenerational Transfer of Abandonment, Shame, and Contempt

John Bradshaw once said, "90% of our shame does not belong to us. It was passed on from our parents, who got it from their parents, and so on." I am here to add abandonment and contempt to that statement. 

Again, rather than passing blame to our ancestors, my mission is to help you stop the Intergenerational transfer of abandonment, shame, and contempt. 

How? I'm glad you asked...

That is what my Thawing the Iceberg Series is all about. With intensity and repetition, using the laws of neuroscience, appropriate information, and the right therapeutic approaches we can change our faulty mental filters, heal our emotional wounds, and become who we were intended to be - our True Self with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in our lives. I know this to be true because I have been there and done that myself.