By Anonymous PsychAlive Member I’m 41 years old and I recently learned that I’ve lived my adult years searching for my parents. Not the obvious ones I was born to, but their replacements. My subconscious desire to have parents in my adult life has caused me years of discontent. The life of a child is… Read more »
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A person’s life is too often a repetition or reenactment of the past. Becoming your true self is a process that lasts throughout a lifetime. Our personalities are not set in stone by the time we drive off to college or even the day we head to retirement. It is always possible for a person… Read more »
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To Withhold Verb: 1. Refuse to give (something that is due to or desired by another) 2. Suppress or hold back (an emotion or reaction) Are you sometimes aware of holding yourself back from being fully engaged in the experience of the moment? Do you find yourself avoiding activities that bring you pleasure… Read more »
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One mistake we make as parents is assuming that there is one way to parent that is better than all others. The reality is, there are countless methods of raising children, and many of them are perfectly healthy. Yet, no matter how many books we read, rules we make, or goals we set, there is… Read more »
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In my 25 years as a therapist, I’ve worked with countless couples facing a broad spectrum of challenges. Yet, despite the diversity between them in age, occupation, or origin, I’m amazed at the similarities in the patterns and pitfalls that couples fall into. When two people walk into my office and start discussing their relationship,… Read more »
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Resolutions are notorious for falling by the wayside a few months or even days into the New Year. A University of Scranton study revealed that only 8 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions are successful in achieving them. This low success rate may relate to the fact that many of us are more inclined to… Read more »
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To the extent that people don’t want what they say they want they are duplicitous in their verbal communications. This applies to a wide area of life pursuits but is particularly relevant to love relationships. What we wish for in fantasy is not necessarily tolerable in reality. Early in life, when we experience rejection and… Read more »
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What is Psychological Differentiation? Psychological differentiation is an important aspect of self-development. As Dr. Robert Firestone writes in his book The Self-Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation, “In order for people to live their own own lives and fulfill their destinies, they must differentiate from destructive environmental influences.” Dr. Firestone believes that a person’s… Read more »
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Have you ever had one of those moments when something comes out of your mouth that doesn’t sound anything like you? You snap at your partner or scold your child, using words you never use or threats you’d never see through. Afterwards, you stand there stumped for a few seconds wondering, “Where did that come… Read more »
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I was once doing a radio show about our (my father, Dr. Robert Firestone, and my) work on the “critical inner voice,” a self-destructive thought process we all possess. The host started the show by talking about all the media attention on terrorism and the fear we, as a nation, were feeling following the attacks… Read more »
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