Search Results for: identity

Confessions of a (Narrow-Minded?!) Liberal: Using Friendship to Bridge the Political Divide

…s noted that, like religious beliefs, political views are part of personal identity. They concluded that “emotion plays a role in cognition and in how we decide what is true and what is not true” (University of Southern California, 2016). So this would seem to indicate that we seek out the facts (or even the non-facts) that support our emotional position about politics. But if we’re not motivated by reason, what drives us to see things the way we…

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It’s Time to Evict the Parents in Your Head

…r unlovable, the emotional climate in which we grew up shapes our sense of identity as well as how we relate to others. Attachment theory tells us that what matters most in our present-day relationships and our own parenting is not only what happened to us, but the extent to which we are able to make sense of and feel the full pain of what happened to us. Other studies like one recently done in Germany show that “there are strong two-way links bet…

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Why Break Ups Hurt So Much

…ole person on your own. No person can complete you. You’re not losing your identity by losing your relationship. You may even be opening up a door to get to know yourself better. Without the deadening restraints of a fantasy bond, we can discover who we really are and what we really want. We can develop our capacity to be loved and open ourselves up to staying close with someone who is available and kind to us. A relationship built on love, as opp…

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The Fantasy Bond: A substitute for a truly loving relationship

…sion of merging with another leads to an insidious and progressive loss of identity in each person. The individuals involved learn to rely more and more on habitual contact, with less and less personal feeling. They find life increasingly hollow and empty as they give up more aspects of their personalities. There are a number of steps that individual partners can initiate to break into the fantasy bond they have formed with each other. Partners ca…

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True Love: What Love Is and What It Is Not

…red, be it of losing our partner or differentiating from our old, familiar identity, we may turn to a fantasy bond to allow us to maintain an illusion that we are not alone, while preserving emotional distance from our partner. To avoid a fantasy bond, we should avoid the characteristics listed above but also take the following actions. Actions to break a fantasy bond and become more loving: Be affectionate. Find even the smallest ways to make con…

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Factors that Increase or Suppress Death Anxiety

…l and escape, yet there are consequences that result in a loss of personal identity and freedom, as well as a certain degree of maladaptation. Unfortunately, one cannot circumvent emotional pain and suffering and repress the existential dilemma without losing feeling for oneself. Thus, the defensive choice always causes damage to the individual. In contrast, living a relatively undefended life leads to an increased potential for experiencing all o…

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secure attachment covid

Can Secure Attachment Make Us Less Afraid During the Coronavirus Crisis?

…alent attachment styles were “more likely to fear the loss of their social identity in death,” whereas those with avoidant attachment styles “were more likely to fear the unknown nature of their death” (Mikulincer, et al,1990). Pursuing intimacy in a close relationship appears to diminish death fears for people, but usually only for individuals with a secure attachment style. Researchers also found that the desire for “intimacy sometimes could be…

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The Scientific Approach to Keeping New Year’s Resolutions

…ly helpful when we’re making a change, because challenging an old sense of identity can stir up our critical inner voices or trigger deep emotions from our past. By taking a mindful approach to whatever arises inside us, we can be like a mountain in a storm, allowing it to pass without being carried off course. The last element of self-compassion is accepting our common humanity as opposed to feeling isolated and different. This attitude involves…

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coping with addiction

The Critical Inner Voice and Addiction

…us in various areas of our lives be it our careers, our relationships, our identity, or our very sense of self-worth. Our critical inner voice preys on our setbacks and questions our successes. It may fill our heads with thoughts like, “You’re so annoying. No one misses having you around.” “You’re constantly messing up. How stupid can you be?” “You can’t handle all this stress. You’re too weak.” Once it’s dragged us through the mud, an alluring “v…

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Is Fear of Emotion Driving Our Addiction?

…bed to all our feelings. In this state, we risk losing a sense of our true identity. We disconnect from our real selves. Because we are torn between feeling and not feeling, we are all divided between our real self, the part of us that wants to live, pursue goals and experience life and what my father Dr. Robert Firestone calls the “anti-self,” which seeks to isolate us, cut us off from feeling and even obliterate or destroy us. Our anti-self aims…

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