My client–we’ll call her Marta–alternately cries and acts tough: “I don’t need anyone…will anyone ever really love me?…screw it.”   Her latest boyfriend is just like all the rest, with lots of promises and very little payoff.

Marta has been traumatized.  First, as a child, and now, as an adult, she continues to put herself in harm’s way and choose bad bets as partners, which leads to retraumatization.  It reinforces the belief that she is, in fact, unlovable, and that people don’t really love and treat each other well anyway.  It’s a grim view of the world.

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