Search Results for: lisa firestone/feed/2009/11/fear-of-intimacy

Nerf Guns – What Are We Afraid of? by Debra Kessler, Psy.D.

…threat can relate to physical safety or emotional safety such as hurt and fear. Not being seen or understood by those around us is a very threatening experience to a child’s developing sense of who they are and where they fit in the world. Part of an individual’s development is building the capacity to have the words to express this. Until this skill is developed, much of the distressed feeling is expressed through non-verbal channels, yelling, t…

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Anxiety

…d. When you deal with the anxious symptoms early on, you help prevent your fears from escalating out of control. Conversely, the more you we indulge and listen to this voice, the more anxiety will begin to take over your our life, keeping you out of situations you may have enjoyed. When in the throws of anxiety, it is vital that we stand strong and keep a real sense of faith that we will get through it. When in this state, we must not sabotage our…

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What Drives Our Loneliness?

…hat emotionally deadened way of being and living,“ wrote my father, Robert Firestone, in a book we co-authored Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion. Individuals build certain psychological defenses to adapt to their early environment that can hurt or limit them in their current lives. These defenses can lead to feelings of alienation, isolation, and depression. To truly face and fight our loneliness, we have to look inside at these deeper def…

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should you spank

Should I Spank My Child?

…itrary or done out of anger. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. -Mahatma Gandhi Child psychologist “Dr. Mac” has helped kids and families for over forty years. A graduate of Dartmouth and the University of Virginia, he is the Clinical Director of the Family Therapy Institute…

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Amy Winehouse, the Reluctant Celebrity: A Parable On the Fatal Cost of Fame

…ife is for public consumption; familiarity breeds inappropriate closeness; fear of being alone in public; seeing recognition in strangers’ eyes; you cannot be anonymous; you are living in a fish bowl; and, continual fear of tabloid paparazzi. And, not surprisingly, the effects of fame are also felt physically, in the body. Participants reported that being out in public was difficult: I felt a little more nervous, a little stomach tightening; my he…

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What to Do When You Feel Paralyzed by the News

…calm our nervous system. We may even feel guilty to try to “calm down” for fear we’re ignoring a problem we should be doing something about. The truth is, while our adrenaline can be fuel to take action (more on that later), that immediate fight-or-flight mode we fall into in a given moment can take a toll on us mentally and physically. And when it gets really bad, we may even seek out numbing agents or distractions to help us escape instead of de…

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The Loss of Pleasure: Attachment Relationship and Loss: A Conversation with Carol Gilligan

    In this Webinar: We avoid the very thing we want – love – for fear of again experiencing a loss that once felt irreparable. Rather than accepting the loss of relationship as inescapable, a healthier response is to feel the sadness and protest the loss. Otherwise, this leads us to the loss of pleasure, which is the marker of an initiation that is felt in the body and experienced as sadness and fear. You can hear this loss in the shift from a r…

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Importance of Emotion in Therapy: A Conversation with Dr. Leslie Greenberg

…displayed as a secondary emotion, because it masks the primary emotion of fear or sadness at other times shame or fear are maladaptive emotions. People then learn to understand, manage, and transform maladaptive emotions through EFT, so that they can access and utilize healthy, adaptive emotions, such as compassion, empowering anger or grief. Greenberg refers to his approach to couples as partners being each other’s “affective regulators” and he…

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Life-Affirming Death Awareness

…. When this internal fantasy process is disrupted, the original suppressed fear reaction is activated and there is considerable hostility directed toward the source. In my book, I suggest that an acceptance of death and dying as a reality and an awareness of the typical defenses that people develop to counter the dread can be life-affirming rather than leading to cynicism or depression. Challenging psychological defenses formed in childhood and re…

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What It’s Like To Live With Mental Disorder

…ry little possible thing that could go wrong — negativity, frustration and fear all rule inside my inner thoughts. Feeling like you’re not good enough, yet you know you are. Feeling like you’re not doing enough, yet you’re doing too much. It’s a constant battle inside of yourself. I just wish more people had an understanding about what mental illness is and that it has many faces.” — Jill L. PLEASE DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY “The reason why I cancel…

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