Search Results for: Robert Firestone

Parents and Self-esteem

Your Child’s Self Esteem Starts With You

…ir self-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…

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How To Bully Proof Your Children by Building Their Resilience

…actions. 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…

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Why Are You Avoiding Intimacy?

…other level 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…

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Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life

Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D. – This book is a rich resource that broadens personal understanding by examining the origins of childhood pain, subsequent defense formation, and the pervasiveness and destructiveness of resulting maladaptive, addictive behaviors in adults. The authors point a way toward reversing the damaging process that keeps individuals from experiencing genuine satisfaction. The clarity and empathic tone of the book make it a valua…

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How To Tell the Difference Between Real Love and Fantasy

…nd exciting 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 r…

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Fear of Intimacy

…eign and unfamiliar. In their introduction to their book Fear of Intimacy, Robert Firestone, Ph.D. and Joyce Catlett, M.A. state: “The average person is unaware that he or she is living out a negative destiny according to his or her past programming, preserving his or her familiar identity, and, in the process, pushing love away. On an unconscious level, many people sense that if they did not push love away, the whole world, as they have experienc…

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Where the Rubber Meets the Road

…attended 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 ma…

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Why Are So Many Parents Limited in Loving Their Children?

…ing practices in a more loving, positive direction.   Join the eCourse on “Compassionate Parenting” featuring work by Dr. Robert Firestone….

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The Impact of Death on our Everyday Lives

…e can about the effects of unconscious and conscious death anxiety on human behavior in order to cope with its consequences and better understand ourselves. Learn about Dr. Robert Firestone’s forthcoming book Overcoming the Destructive Inner Voice: True Stories of Therapy and Transformation….

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What Goes On in the Mind of Your Therapist?

…not to occasionally be curious about what they are experiencing. My father Robert Firestone recently wrote a book, which offers a unique glimpse into the mind of the therapist, Overcoming the Destructive Inner Voice. In it, he tells true stories of working with patients in therapy and their process of transformation. In his introduction, he wrote, “Psychotherapy represents a powerful personal interaction and a unique human relationship in which a…

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