Relationships

Do You Provoke Your Partner?

5 habits you may not realize are creating conflict in your relationship. I often tell couples I work with to avoid playing the blame game. It tends to be pretty easy for many of us to list off the things our partner is doing wrong or to describe how they provoke us. However, few of… Read more »

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Staying in Love While Staying Yourself

A lot of couples talk to me about their struggles to stay close to each other in a way that feels vital and intimate. At the same time, they may also complain about a feeling of sacrifice or a way they’re having to compromise and give up certain aspects of themselves to be in the… Read more »

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Going Back Out into the Dating World

With vaccines being approved, manufactured, and distributed and with vaccination centers opening up and people starting to be vaccinated, it seems like there’s a chance we could be returning to some form of a normal life before the end of the year. Single people for whom dating has been interrupted for the past year may… Read more »

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How Your Attachment Pattern Influences Your Life

One of the most fascinating things about working in psychology is the chance to explore the invisible forces that shape our lives. Many of us move through each day operating as a bit of a mystery to ourselves. We don’t fully understand our thoughts, feelings, or even our behavior. We’re often left to wonder why… Read more »

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3 Ways to Tell You’re Afraid of Intimacy

While most of us say we want love, pretty much all of us have some degree of fear around intimacy. The type and extent of this fear can vary based on our personal history: the attachment patterns we developed and the psychological defenses we formed to protect ourselves from early hurts. These patterns and defenses… Read more »

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How to Go “All In” in a Relationship (Without Losing Yourself)

As a therapist, I spend a good amount of time exploring the push and pull that occurs in relationships. For example, between couples, a lot of friction occurs when one person is wanting more closeness, while the other is seeking more space. With individuals, I observe many people who say they want love and intimacy,… Read more »

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How to Get Your Relationship Out of a Rut

There are ways to liven up your relationship even in lockdown. Even in normal times, it is easy for partners to get into a rut where their relationship is more or less on autopilot, and they fall into taking each other for granted. But during these abnormal times with many couples quarantining together 24/7, the… Read more »

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Ways to Improve Your Relationship While Sheltering at Home

Just as it has with pretty much everything else in our lives, Covid-19 has had a significant impact on our relationships. Pair the novelty of the situation with the increased uncertainty and stress of coping with a global pandemic, and what we’ll find is that most couples are facing new strains on their relationship that are making life at home all… Read more »

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How to Preserve Your Individuality While Quarantining with Your Partner

For many of us, we are one more month into being quarantined with our partner. While this can be an opportunity to take a break from the busyness and distractions of our “normal” lives and reconnect with our loved one, it is also a time when we can lose touch with who we are as… Read more »

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Experts at Home: Dr. Pat Love on Relationships During the Time of Covid-19

  In our first Experts at Home conversation, Dr. Lisa Firestone interviews relationship expert Dr. Pat Love. They discuss common relationship challenges in the time of Covid-19 and how couples can use this challenging time as an opportunity for growth. You can download the questions for connecting exercise Dr. Pat Love mentions in the interview… Read more »

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