…t by a parent or caretaker. In his new book, Challenging the Fantasy Bond, Robert Firestone describes the baby’s situation, “The infant, lacking any sense of time, knows only the intensity of the moment and suffers intolerable fear and emotional pain when faced with frustration and separation anxiety.” To allay those feelings, a baby develops an illusion of connection or merged identity with their parent. This imagination provides the baby with pa…
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…st or resentful in the relationship. Giving in to Our Fear of Intimacy Dr. Robert Firestone, psychologist and author of Fear of Intimacy (also father to Dr. Lisa Firestone), has presented a case for why most people are, to varying degrees, afraid of closeness. “Most people say that they want love and positive acknowledgment, but relatively few people can tolerate real love and respect from another person, because it threatens their defenses’” said…
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…logical differentiation is an important aspect of self-development. As Dr. Robert Firestone writes in his book The Self-Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation, “In order for people to live their own own lives and fulfill their destinies, they must differentiate from destructive environmental influences.” Dr. Firestone believes that a person’s true identity is affected throughout their lives by interpersonal experiences that either su…
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…ccomplish their goals. This approach to life represents what my father Dr. Robert Firestone has identified as being in an adult mode, in contrast to maintaining a childish stance or adopting a parental/ judgmental point of view. He sees these characteristics as essential elements to being an emotionally healthy individual. The idea that resilience is one of the primary keys to well-being is backed by Dr. Salvatore Maddi’s 35 years of research into…
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…real wants, goals and desires from undesirable outside influences. As Dr. Robert Firestone wrote in his book The Self Under Siege, “Differentiation is a universal struggle that all human beings face if they wish to fully develop themselves as individuals.” Firestone outlines four essential steps to the process of differentiation that can help individuals live free of imagined limitations. According to Firestone, in order for our real, authentic s…
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…atmosphere we grew up in have a heavy hand on how we act as adults. As Dr. Robert Firestone, author of The Self Under Siege, wrote, “As children, people not only identify with the defenses of their parents but also tend to incorporate into themselves the critical or hostile attitudes that were directed toward them. These destructive personal attacks become part of the child’s developing personality, forming an alien system, the anti-self, distingu…
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…so self-centered; she only cares about herself.” As my father psychologist Robert Firestone often says about engaging in this way, “You may win the battle, but you will lose the war.” While many people tend to be more combative, there are those who take the opposite approach. Rather than say what they want, they shut down or turn inward. They may feel quietly resentful toward their partner or indulge in destructive thoughts toward themselves. They…
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…Bond.” The fantasy bond is a concept developed by my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, that describes an illusion of connection a couple forms that replaces real acts of love, affection, and relating. A fantasy bond exists when the form of a relationship becomes more important than the substance – when a couple starts to forego their individually—losing the “me” to become a “we.” As Robert Firestone explains it, “Perhaps the most significant…
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…t stands for Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training. Doctors Robert J. Meyers and Jane Ellen Smith developed CRAFT during the 1980s and ’90s. It has just begun to get wider use since 2009. CRAFT is a powerful approach because it builds on the caring between family members as part of the solution to get more people into treatment. It helps those struggling with drugs or alcohol to accept their needs for healing and become willing to s…
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…core beliefs don’t disappear as we get older. In fact, what my father Dr. Robert Firestone and I have found in our 30 years of research is that these thoughts go on to affect us in every area of our lives, making up what we refer to as our “critical inner voice.” We can even pass these “voices” down to future generations. Where this inner critic comes from, why it exists and what we can do about it are the subjects of our book Conquer Your Critic…
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