Search Results for: michelle deen/2010/06/2009/12/dr-lisa-firestone-“suicide-the-warning-signs”/2010/03/helper-tasks-how-you-can-help-someone-whos-suicidal/2010/03/helper-tasks-how-you-can-help-someone-whos-suicidal

The Self Under Siege: A New Model of Differentiation

…ative approach to differentiation, a four-step process developed by Robert Firestone, Ph.D. involving: 1. Breaking with internalized thought processes, critical attitudes toward self & others. 2. Altering the negative personality traits in oneself that represent an incorporation of aversive traits of one’s parents 3. Identifying/relinquishing patterns of defense formed as an adaptation to painful events in childhood. 4. Developing one’s own values…

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Why Am I Still Single? 8 Reasons People Often Stay Single

…r. She often stated that she just wasn’t attracted to him. The men she was drawn to instead tended to be unreliable and emotionally distant. At her friends’ insistence, she finally agreed to go on a date with the man who’d been pursuing her. What she found, to her surprise, was a high-level relationship choice, a partner with whom she shared a great deal of mutual interest, and, ultimately, genuine love. What hers and so many similar stories show…

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Why Break Ups Hurt So Much

…tner. A fantasy bond is a term developed by my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, to describe an imagined connection a person develops to another person, thereby creating an illusion of security or false sense of safety. When individuals do this, they no longer express genuine acts of love; instead they substitute real relating with the form of having a relationship and exist as two isolated people living two separate lives. A fantasy bond hel…

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Becoming Your Real Self: Shedding the Baggage of Your Past

…rds at your child that your father yelled at you? Do you find yourself withdrawing from your romantic partner in a self-protective style similar to how your father was with your mother? Or do you find yourself acting without regard for another person’s boundaries in a fashion reminiscent of your mother? These are all examples of common ways that negative traits of our early caretakers manifest as part of our personality. These patterns can also hu…

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5 Simple Steps to End Any Fight

…espect and caring. And perhaps you will even live longer and certainly with a lot more satisfaction from your relationship. Follow Dr. Firestone on Twitter or Google+….

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Are You Hardy Enough?

…rentiated individual, as outlined in my new book, co-authored by my father Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett, The Self Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation. Individuals who are more differentiated, who are living their lives based on their own unique values and desires, are open to new experiences rather than tied to routine. They can think clearly and problem solve. They are proactive not victimized when faced with difficulti…

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What Goes On in the Mind of Your Therapist?

…not necessarily being seen for who he or she really is. This can leave children confused about who they really are and cause them to struggle in forging their own unique identity. Throughout childhood, a person develops psychological defenses to cope with their specific circumstances. These defenses may work to protect them as children, but they often go on to limit or hurt them as adults. Think about the little girl who stays quiet in her househo…

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Helping Parents Distinguish Love from Emotional Hunger

…rances. Parents who behave in this manner exert a strong pull on their children that drains a child of his or her emotional resources… [Parents] often confuse their own intense feelings of need and anxious attachment for genuine love. They fail to make a distinction between emotional hunger, which is a strong need caused by deprivation in their own childhoods, and genuine feelings of tenderness, love, and concern for their child’s well-being. Pare…

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The Fantasy Bond

Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D. – This book offers a consistently developed set of hypotheses centering around the concept of the “fantasy bond,” an illusion of connection originally formed with the mother/ primary caretaker and later with significant others in the individual’s environment. Based on 28 years of research into the problem of resistance, this book offers a consistently developed set of hypotheses centering around the concept of the “fant…

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Where the Rubber Meets the Road

…ed a psychology conference in New York City and stumbled across Dr. Robert Firestone’s book, The Fantasy Bond. In spite of the fact I had stacks of assigned reading, this was the book I couldn’t put down. It enlightened me in ways none of my professors could, answering theoretical questions roaming around in my freshly primed mind. Most importantly, it made sense, not just theoretically, but personally. And this really is the crux of the matter, t…

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