Search Results for: Linda Firestone

How To Bully Proof Your Children by Building Their Resilience

…s. Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice, a book I co-authored with Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett, provides exercises for recognizing and overcoming this internal bully. Be Critical, Coddling, or Ignore Issues: We should always support our kids in new challenges. We can help by putting them in somewhat novel situations in which they’re slightly uncomfortable, but we’re there to back them up. We shouldn’t over-push them, leading them to feel a…

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breaking the fantasy bond with our mothers, psychalive, mothers day 2012, mother daughter conflict,

Breaking the Fantasy Bond with Our Mothers

…reasons, both personal and professional. For one thing, my father, Robert Firestone, has written extensively about the ambivalence inherent in every mother-daughter relationship. His descriptive accounts of the dynamics operating in the mother-daughter bond were published in Compassionate Child-Rearing (1990) and are explained in a chapter in our forthcoming book, co-authored by Joyce Catlett, The Self Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differe…

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A New Approach to Violence Treatment: An Interview with Dr. James Gilligan

…part of an exclusive interview series with Dr. James Gilligan and Dr. Lisa Firestone. Dr. James Gilligan is a renowned violence expert, and has contributed years of research to the treatment of some of California’s most violent prisoners. Additionally, he served as an expert witness in the litigation that was subject of the Supreme Court decision in Plata V. Brown. Dr. James Gilligan on Love and the Soul The human soul, the human psyche, needs lov…

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Real Love or a Fantasy Bond: The Appeal of the Twilight Saga

…enges that arise with real love is form what my father psychologist Robert Firestone termed a “Fantasy Bond.” The fantasy bond is a connection built out of fears from danger and even from death that we often experience at an unconscious level. This bond substitutes real feelings of love, respect, and spontaneity with an illusion of connection, a focus on form over substance, and a false sense of security and completion by another person. When we f…

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"I Do Until I Don’t" The Truth Behind Celebrity Marriage

…hen couples lose intimacy and emotional connections. According to Dr. Lisa Firestone, many couples maintain a fantasy bond in their relationships. This bond is an illusion of closeness and connection, but it is a fantasy version of love. In this way, couples preserve an imagination of love while keeping emotional distance from each other. This bond typically develops as couples fall out of love, yet they protect themselves by maintaining an illusi…

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Fantasy Bond, Intimacy problems, relationship advice

Why the Spark Fades in a Relationship

…sychological theory developed by my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, the “fantasy bond” describes a way of relating that serves as a substitute for a truly loving relationship As my father has written of the fantasy bond, “This illusion of connection and closeness allows [a couple] to maintain an imagination of love and loving, while preserving emotional distance.” As one woman who was going through a divorce after six years of ma…

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personal sexuality, sexual identity, psychalive

Achieving Sexual Intimacy

…Dr. Lisa Firestone on Achieving Intimacy…

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The Fantasy Bond, fear of intimacy, psychalive, the glendon association

What is a Fantasy Bond?

…Dr. Robert Firestone on The Fantasy Bond…

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Breaking Free from Addiction

…herapeutic approach developed by my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, therapists help clients pinpoint environmental triggers that precipitate the painful emotions and negative thought patterns, which, in turn, influence them to engage in addictive behaviors. By further encouraging the pursuit of genuine wants, desires, and goals, therapists strengthen clients’ real selves, a process that enables them to achieve freedom from addict…

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death anxiety, death awareness, psychalive, Dr Sheldon Solomon

Creating Meaning by Facing Our Mortality

…Conversely, both Dr. Solomon and my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, argue that when death awareness isn’t denied, but recognized, we can use it to promote peace and compassion. The idea that, as humans, we are all in the same boat (“all be it a sinking boat,” as Dr. Solomon points out) promotes a sense of equality and togetherness. The acknowledgement that our physical selves share the same fate, and that we all hold the same fea…

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