…ted psychologically… also serve as terrible limitations to the self,” said Dr. Robert Firestone author of Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life. As children, the ways in which we comforted ourselves often served as substitutes for something we were either not getting or wished to avoid. Whatever we did, whether we calmed ourselves with self-soothing habits or disappeared into a world of fantasy, we felt relieved by our behaviors. The pain was le…
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…heir actions. 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 the…
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…utor to many of the world’s wars and political conflicts. 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 sel…
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…e in her – and we’re mostly unaware of this process. Nancy Friday’s and Hendrika Freud’s ideas strongly resonate with me for many 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 ex…
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…fe, luring and condemning, comforting and destroying. People who engage in drug or alcohol abuse, who have an eating disorder, or who struggle with any addiction are acting according to the prescriptions of a destructive thought process known as the critical inner voice. For example, if you struggle with an alcohol dependency, this internal enemy will try to tempt you with a seductive, seeming friendly thought (or “voice”) saying, “You’ve had a ro…
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…ts us up is the best way to be ourselves in our relationships. Rather than driving us apart, this separateness actually allows us to feel our attractions and choose to be together. Think about the state people are in when they first fall in love. They are drawn to each other based on their unique attributes. Their individuality is viewed with interest and respect, qualities we should aim to maintain even decades after being with someone romantical…
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…d lead to a real and lasting relationship. Instead, they may be based on a draw toward fantasy, a false sense of being completed, or an innate desire to merge one’s identity with another (returning to the safety of the womb). They can also be based on emotional hunger toward a partner, or the illusion of getting safety and immortality through “love” and walking off into the sunset together forever. So why are we drawn to fantasy over reality when…
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…. Fight Depression: Be Active When you’re depressed your energy levels can drop drastically, but the last thing you want to do when feeling down is to keep yourself from getting up. It’s a physiological fact that activity fights depression. Get your heart rate up 20 minutes a day, five days a week, and it has been scientifically proven that you will feel better emotionally. Exercising increases the neuro-plasticity of your brain and releases neuro…
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…oes it come from? Does having this point of view identify you with someone from your early life experiences? It’s a beneficial line of exploration and “becoming aware of the voice” is one of the most valuable contributions Dr. Robert Firestone, The Glendon Association and PsychAlive offer in helping us get right with ourselves. Other Posts by This Author: Where the Rubber Meets the Road Open to Emotion Gaining Awareness Through Loss More-…
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