Search Results for: lisa+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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Eight Ways to Actively Fight Depression

…ice of a well-hidden enemy within, what my father, psychologist Dr. Robert Firestone refers to as the critical inner voice. Internalized early in life, this inner voice functions like an over-disciplinary parent holding us back and keeping us in our place. On October 11, I am presenting a CE Webinar to professionals on an Innovative Approach to Treating Depression. The presentation will illustrate how this destructive thought process fuels depress…

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Five Ways to Bring Your Vacation Romance Home

…elationship. This mode of imagined relating is what psychologist Robert W. Firestone, refers to as a “fantasy bond.” A fantasy bond represents a fused identity as a couple that replaces the initial excitement and mutual respect we once felt as two individuals who loved and cared for each other. When we give up our individuality for the security of imagining that we are part of a couple, we lose the attraction we once felt toward each other. By let…

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Parents and Self-esteem

Your Child’s Self Esteem Starts With You

…-perception, and helps them to develop what my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, and I have defined as the “Self-System.” The Self System describes the unique make-up of the individual that exists inherently, which is then informed by a harmonious identification with and incorporation of a parent’s positive attitudes and traits. When parents feel good about themselves, they are much better able to extend this positive sense of self to their c…

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Why Are You Avoiding Intimacy?

…evel our defenses are being threatened. According to my father, Dr. Robert Firestone, author of Fear of Intimacy, there are many reasons our fears around relationships get ignited, but here are five primary sources.   1. Real love makes us feel vulnerable. Stepping into the unknown (especially something that makes us feel different about ourselves) can be inherently frightening.   2. New love stirs up past hurts. Sadly, being loved in a way we hav…

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The Critical Inner Voice

Evicting the "Obnoxious Roommate" In Your Head

…the parallels between Arianna’s inspiring message and my father’s, Robert Firestone, and my own 30 years of research into the concept of the “critical inner voice.” Like the “obnoxious roommate” described by Arianna, the inner voice represents an internalized critic that we all possess to varying degrees. Although this isn’t an actual voice we hear, the critical inner voice describes destructive thoughts we all experience toward ourselves, as if…

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Sabotage You

…ritical Inner Voice, a concept generated by my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, is formed early in life during stressful and traumatic events. Just as positive childhood experiences lead to confidence, ability and optimism, negative experiences lead us to low self-esteem, self-destructive behaviors and pessimism. The Critical Inner Voice thus describes a dynamic operating within each of us that causes us to relive rather than live our life….

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The Real Reason You’re Not Married

…rsonal relationships, both I and my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, Ph.D., have closely followed hundreds of clients and case studies of couples. In our research we have found overwhelming consistency in certain behavioral patterns that systematically sabotage real intimacy. First off, the search for a partner to whom we feel a real attraction and deep connection is a challenge that it would be foolish to underestimate. The idea…

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How To Tell the Difference Between Real Love and Fantasy

…ting from the deadening effects of what my father, psychologist Dr. Robert Firestone, termed “The Fantasy Bond?” A fantasy bond is created when two people replace real acts of genuine love, admiration, passion, and respect with the role and ritual of “being” in a relationship. Though this process is often unconscious, people can begin to recognize patterns and behaviors characterized by a Fantasy Bond that are destructive to their closest relation…

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How to Bring "Vacation Sex" Home With You

…se its sizzle? One explanation, which I (along with psychologist Robert W. Firestone) wrote about in our book Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice is that “The single most important factor that contributes to the deterioration of love, friendship and sexuality in a relationship is the formation of a fantasy bond. The fantasy bond is an illusion of connection or imagined fusion with another person that provides an individual with a false sense of safe…

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