Beyond Blame

Freeing yourself from toxic emotional bullsh*t.

by Carl Alasko, Ph.D.

How to Create New Patterns

In my last blog post, I began answering a reader who wondered why so many of her relationships were unsuccessful, from a marriage to an emotionally abusive husband to her brother’s stealing from her. Read More

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Me?

My experience has taught me that people who have difficulty recognizing when they're being exploited have a specific problem: they allow their emotions to overwhelm their thinking. Read More

Asking Your Date Core Questions

Why be coy about something as serious as being serious? And especially as life-changing as having a child, or children? Read More

How Does Denial Actually Work?

Dear Dr. Alasko: One of my family members likes to constantly accuse others of "being in denial.” When I question him on this, his explanations don't make much sense. I believe that either something is true or it’s not. So does denial really exist? And if it does, how does it work? Read More

Dealing with Hyper-Connected Youth

Dear Dr. Alasko: Our two sons, ages 9 and 13, love technology. My husband is himself a computer geek so he thinks it's great. He says the more they know the better equipped they'll be for their future. But I worry about the human side of their lives. Read More

How to Stop Dating — Respectfully

Dear Dr. Alasko: I consider myself a kind person, but I've never figured out a way to tell someone I've been dating that I'm no longer interested. Usually I try to get the message across by not answering the phone, etc., but that doesn't feel very good. Read More

Setting Limits on Anger

Since anger is both an emotion and a behavior, those subject to angry outbursts must set limits about which behaviors we will and won't tolerate. Read More

My Fiancé Has a Hair-Trigger Temper

Changing Longstanding Habits With Self-Support

"Since I was kid I've loved risky activities: skydiving, fast motorcycles, gambling. Now I'm married, have a child and a good job, and I realize my love of the adrenaline rush is a problem. I really want to change some of my bad habits but so far have had little success. Any suggestions?" Read More

Developing a Basic Agreement

Dear Dr. Alasko: Our marriage has survived for over twenty years and for a lot of the time we get along pretty well, but we have a chronic problem. We get into arguments over the same old issues: Money. Our kids. Even food. We recognize that we're really in an ongoing power struggle - but neither of us is willing to give in, and we can't seem to break this pattern. Read More

My Husband is Rigid and Rejecting

Dear Dr. Alasko: My husband takes pride in being raised on a working ranch. He's hard working, honest and dependable. But he's also very rigid and cynical, which means he disparages anyone who doesn't see the world in black/white terms. He doesn't like any of my friends who are artists or teachers, and especially despises my gay-couple friends. Read More

Denial and Delusion over Money

Dear Dr. Alasko: "Ryan" and I are discussing marriage but we have a problem with money. I'm from a large family for whom money was always tight and am still paying off college loans. Ryan's family, contrarily, paid for his college—yet he hasn't saved a penny. I make my own coffee every morning, while Ryan buys a mocha latte. Read More

My Date Has Big Money Problems

Dear Dr. Alasko: After my fifteen year marriage ended in divorce a year ago, I've been on a few dates with J., who I really like. He's new to the area and is setting up a professional office. But he seems to have some financial complications and gets irritated whenever money comes into the picture. Even paying for dinner can be stressful. Read More

My Mother Never Liked Me

Should I give up on my unloving mother altogether? Read More

Learning from Life's Harsh Realities

Dear Dr. Alasko: Our 20-year-old son dropped out of college a couple of months ago—he was an English/philosophy major-because he wants to work at something "meaningful." He said that studying was pointless and doesn't truly "help" people. We, of course, would support him in anything he wants to do. Read More

Crafting Marriage Vows to Fit the Times

The traditional marriage vows cover the main intention of marriage. From a psychological perspective, these vows suffer from being generic. Read More

Using Anger as Positive Energy

Dear Dr. Alasko: I'd been dating B. for a year until I just learned that she was seeing another guy. This is the third time a girl I've fallen in love with has betrayed me I'm so angry and upset that I can hardly sleep. I'm angry because women seem to be so shallow, focused on money, shopping and anything that comes their way. Read More

Being Too Perfectionist Can Ruin a Marriage

There's an endlessly ongoing discussion in psychology about whether genetics determines one's basic personality or whether one's environment shapes it. Read More

I Resent My Dad's New Family

It's no longer all that unusual for a parent to remarry in later years (frequently to someone a bit younger) and have at least one child. Likewise it's not unusual for children of the previous family to resent the new family. Read More

Searching for My Birth Mother

Dear Dr. Alasko: I have a complicated problem. I didn't discover that I was adopted until I was fourteen. My adoptive parents are wonderful people and I consider them my parents but they have been very troubled by the fact that they didn't tell me directly about being adopted. Now I'm mid-twenties and I want to contact my birth mother. My parents are distressed at my decision. Read More

Active Grieving Helps Healing

Dear Dr. Alasko: I've had several losses in my life lately and I'm having a difficult time dealing with them. A childhood friend in his fifties died unexpectedly, another friend has cancer, and then our dog we've had since a puppy also died. On top of this, our two children took jobs on the other side of the country and are too busy to visit. Read More

My Kids Believe They Deserve Everything!

Dear Dr. Alasko: A common complaint my friends with kids all face is how our children have come to believe they deserve everything with little effort on their part. They seem to be getting fussier and more demanding as they get older. At school they put in some work, but even there they try shortcuts such as borrowing each other's work, taking things off the web, etc. Read More

The Dangers of Teenage Sexting

Dear Dr. Alasko: We recently discovered that our sixteen year-old son has sent explicit sexual images of himself to two girls in his class. He claims that the girls first sent photos of their naked bodies to him so he's only responding . . . and, he argues, everybody does it. Read More

How Blame Kills Love

Is there a single quality that's vital to the success of every relationship? One element that predicts its outcome?

Yes, there is - and it can be expressed in a single word: trust.

A relationship without basic trust has no security. Lack of trust creates anxiety. When we can't tolerate anxiety, we resort to blame. And blame kills relationships. Read More

Allow Father's Secrets to Die with Him

Here's the basic question most of us don't take the time to ask when we're faced with a decision: "What do I want to accomplish?" We need to break that down, too, and ask ourselves: What is my ultimate goal? What are the possible consequences of this action? Read More

Common Themes in Addiction

Dear Dr. Alasko: My husband comes from a family that loves to drink and eat and drink. I consider most of them alcoholics and they're all overweight, including my husband. But they'd angrily deny that since they all keep jobs and "never get drunk." I've about given up on trying to get him to change, especially since everyone constantly reinforces his bad habits. Read More

Carl Alasko, Ph.D. is the author of Beyond Blame (Tarcher Penguin), and like his first book Emotional Bullshit, it has been published in five languages.

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