Search Results for: Robert Firestone

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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Eight Ways to Actively Fight Depression

…is actually the voice of a well-hidden enemy within, what psychologist Dr. Robert Firestone refers to as the critical inner voice. Internalized early in live, this inner voice functions like an over-disciplinary parent holding us back and keeping us in our place. Think of these thoughts as being like the parasites that keep you in bed when you’re sick with the flu. Don’t listen to these attacks when they tell you not to pursue your goals or to for…

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Open to Emotion

…et it’s a widely accepted thing to do. In Compassionate Child-Rearing, Dr. Robert Firestone discusses something he refers to as the implicit pain of sensitive child-rearing. Raising children with the emotional bonding they need—sensitivity, empathy and compassion—requires the parent to be open and vulnerable, willing to feel the child’s emotional states, (the pleasurable and the painful) as well as their own. To be tuned in to their child’s pain a…

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How Do I Know if I Have a Fantasy Bond?

…motional distance,” wrote psychologist and author of The Fantasy Bond, Dr. Robert Firestone on his PsychAlive blog. What is a Fantasy Bond? The fantasy bond exists when the reality of a deep, loving feeling is replaced by a more robotic form of going through the motions of an intimate relationship. Many factors including childhood experiences, the repeating of past patterns and a fear of being alone can drive people to a fantasy bond. As children,…

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How Over-Parenting Hurts Your Children… and You

…is Psychology Today blog, on the subject of Emotional Hunger Vs. Love, Dr. Robert Firestone explains, Many parents overstep the personal boundaries of their children in various ways: by inappropriately touching them, going through their belongings, reading their mail, and requiring them to perform for friends and relatives. This type of parental intrusiveness seriously limits a child’s’ personal freedom and autonomy. Many mothers and fathers speak…

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What Are Defenses?

…psychologically… also serve as terrible limitations to the self,” said Dr. Robert Firestone author of Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life. As children, the ways in which we comforted ourselves often served as substitutes for something we were either not getting or wished to avoid. Whatever we did, whether we calmed ourselves with self-soothing habits or disappeared into a world of fantasy, we felt relieved by our behaviors. The pain was lessen…

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Breaking Free from Addiction

…py, a therapeutic approach developed by my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, therapists help clients pinpoint environmental triggers that precipitate the painful emotions and negative thought patterns, which, in turn, influence them to engage in addictive behaviors. By further encouraging the pursuit of genuine wants, desires, and goals, therapists strengthen clients’ real selves, a process that enables them to achieve freedom from…

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Why Break Ups Hurt So Much

…our partner. 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 b…

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death anxiety, death awareness, psychalive, Dr Sheldon Solomon

Creating Meaning by Facing Our Mortality

…licts. Conversely, both Dr. Solomon and my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, argue that when death awareness isn’t denied, but recognized, we can use it to promote peace and compassion. The idea that, as humans, we are all in the same boat (“all be it a sinking boat,” as Dr. Solomon points out) promotes a sense of equality and togetherness. The acknowledgement that our physical selves share the same fate, and that we all hold the s…

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Hunger Versus Love

Subtitle: A Perspective on Parent-Child Relations. In this program, Dr. Robert Firestone clarifies the distinction between parental behavior that leads to an anxious attachment in children and behavior that promotes a secure attachment. Participants in a parenting discussion group explore the destructive effects of emotional hunger, both from a perspective of their own childhood experiences and in present-day interactions with their children. A p…

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