What most drives the endless pursuit of power is the individual’s desperate need to fill a void originating from what, much earlier, they felt deprived of.
If a marriage is to survive an affair, the betrayed partner’s ongoing—and perhaps rageful—berating of the offender must subside, or it can be the final blow.
Having some emotional dependency on your partner isn’t dysfunctional. But when it’s excessive, it’s detrimental for you, your partner, and the relationship.
If a child takes offense at how parents look at them, speak to them, or act toward them, defensively provoking them in turn may be almost irresistible.
If we want to feel fully alive, and able to tackle the challenges life presents us with, we must heal old emotional hurts—not just anesthetize ourselves.
Transforming entrenched programming bred in childhood isn’t for the timid. These maladaptive, now-outdated mechanisms of defense were once felt to be vital to your survival.
The fact that child abuse is overt, and neglect passive and covert, supports the idea that abuse must be the more odious form of mistreatment. But is it?
Some people are able to emotionally identify with your hurt only by experiencing some of it themselves. But this “medical” remedy is all too likely to backfire.
Paradoxically, in the misguided attempts of most couples to rectify old maladaptive patterns, they end up replicating them—and it’s completely unconscious.
Substantial research indicates how intimate connections are crucial to our health and well-being. Yet such secure ties don’t come that easily. Why not?
Committing to the wrong person because the time is just right for you makes little sense. But what if the time is wrong, yet your prospective partner seems almost perfect?
It can take time to accept as true what’s already clear in your subconscious. A matter settled within you may not be ready to be admitted into awareness.
When you are in love and fervently wish that your romance culminates in marriage, your behavior will be as agreeable and accommodating as you can make it.
Anyone wishing to exert authority effectively would best do so humbly. Research on this subject focuses on corporations, but the results are generalizable.
Working for another’s well-being can be intrinsically rewarding — activating the pleasure centers of the brain. But beyond a certain point, it can be costly.
This blog is mostly about helping readers develop deeper insights into themselves and others. Aiming to be as practical as possible--and adopting a non-blaming, non-shaming perspective toward our various foibles--it suggests ways in which we may become more aware, more contented, and happier, individuals. The therapist and writer's posts have over 33 million views.
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