Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Cleaning up emotional pollution

Steven Stosny, Ph.D.

Why You and Your Partner Remember Things Differently

“Revisionist history,” in reference to individuals, is synonymous with “memory.”

How to Empower Bullied Children

The internet has taken the dark practice of bullying to new dimensions, making it ubiquitous and inescapable.

How Emotional Reactivity Causes Conflict

In the experience of negative emotions, most thought processes work to justify our feelings rather than to test the reality of our assumptions.

Treating Two Major Types of Emotional Abusers

When abusers feel disappointed, sad, guilty, ashamed, anxious, or unlovable, they automatically blame partners or children.

Getting Past the Pain and Powerlessness of Resentment

The natural function of all pain, including resentment, is to motivate behavior that will heal and improve.

How We Recover from Emotional Abuse

Repairing a relationship damaged by chronic resentment, anger, abuse, or betrayal takes consistent compassion.

What Bad Advice Does to Relationships

The only chance of getting compassion, kindness, and cooperation is being respectful, compassionate, kind, and cooperative.

9 Early Warning Signs of Potential Emotional Abuse

It can be hard to discern warning signs early in a relationship, especially when dating online.

How the Laws of Attachment Go Awry in Dysfunctional Relationships

Breaking the laws of attachment breeds guilt and shame. If these reactions feel like punishments rather than motivations, people may begin to blame loved ones.

The Uncertainty Principle in Relationship Dynamics

When we feel bad, we’re likely to assume the worst about our partners' intentions.

Emotional Abuse and the Risk of Violence

All violent relationships are emotionally abusive, but most emotionally abusive relationships never become violent. These factors increase the risk.

Compassion Styles: Burning Buildings vs. Routine Nurturance

Understanding differences in compassion style is crucial for committed partners, who would otherwise judge — and resent — loved ones for not responding the same way they would.

An Equation for Emotional Well-being and Relationship Health

We tend to focus our efforts where we have the least influence and the least chance of success, namely trying to change other people.

8 Relationship Secrets

The biggest mistake partners make in relationships is assuming that events and behaviors mean the same to both of them.

Secrets of Self-Value: Accept and Improve

Once accepted, disliked traits can be improved with practice.

Freedom to Love

If someone needs you, he or she is more likely to abuse you than to give freely of love and support.

Five Myths of Emotional Eating

We digest more information about eating and see more images of food in the media and the environment at large than the rest of the people on the planet.

Positive vs. Negative Attachment

Failure of compassion turns attachments negative. Reinstatement of compassion will turn them back.

Signs of a Healthy Relationship

Checklists of unhealthy relationships suffer from the great affliction of the 21st Century: We’re against more than we’re for.

The Four People in a Marriage

It’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a large ego to fit into a good relationship.

Arguments in Love and Politics

When feeling right is more important than being right, you’re likely to devalue, dismiss, or disrespect those who disagree.

Is There an Angry Personality?

In our closest relationships, we can learn compassionate assertiveness, standing up for our own rights and preferences while respecting the rights and preferences of others.

The Worry Habit

Racing thoughts must have answers to form alternative synaptic connections and prevent thought-looping.

Compassion Is Power

True compassion helps us to trust wisely. It helps us see the pain people suffer and the defenses they use against their pain.

To Justify or Not to Justify

When we reflect on how we feel, we bring into implicit memory past instances that evoked similar feelings, creating an illusion that it’s always been that way and always will be.

Joy Amid the Terror

To experience the wonder of being alive, we must acknowledge and transcend the terror of being alive.

The Blessing and Curse of the Internet

To be heard in the cacophonous sea of voices, individuals must amplify their own, so they’re likely to express exaggerated thoughts they don’t fully believe.

Binocular Vision in Love

Even if factually correct, one perspective is incomplete. The reality of any interaction and of the relationship as a whole is both perspectives together.

Heal, Grow, Empower, Transcend

If your life feels genuine, with sustained interest, purpose, conviction, and compassion, you have created a set of values and more or less kept true to them.

The Footprints of Emotional Injury

We can wipe away the footprints of injury by identifying with our innate resilience and ability to heal.

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