Search Results for: Robert Firestone

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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The "Voice” Is a Sneaky, Tricky Thing

…come from? Does having this point of view identify you with someone from your early life experiences? It’s a beneficial line of exploration and “becoming aware of the voice” is one of the most valuable contributions Dr. Robert Firestone, The Glendon Association and PsychAlive offer in helping us get right with ourselves. Other Posts by This Author: Where the Rubber Meets the Road Open to Emotion Gaining Awareness Through Loss More-…

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The Fantasy Bond, fear of intimacy, psychalive, the glendon association

What is a Fantasy Bond?

…Dr. Robert Firestone on The Fantasy Bond…

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How Negative Thoughts Are Ruining Your Life

…y and therapy technique developed by my father psychologist and author Dr. Robert Firestone. It is the basis of a book we co-authored titled Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice and the subject of many of my lectures, Webinars and my upcoming six-week eCourse “Overcome Your Inner Critic.” Why I have invested so much of my time and work into this subject is because what I have found in my 30 years of research and clinical practice is that, in almost a…

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Why It Is Good For You to Feel Negative Emotions

…what you are doing with your life. My father, psychologist and author Dr. Robert Firestone exemplifies this principle, recently stating, I knew early in life what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be. I wanted to make a contribution and I wanted to help people. I didn’t want to be insignificant, I wanted to be significant and I wanted to share life and I wanted to experience it, I wanted to feel everything… I didn’t want to miss anything. I didn’t…

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relationship fix

How to Fix a Relationship

…tart to engage in a “Fantasy Bond.” A fantasy bond is a term coined by Dr. Robert Firestone describing a state two people enter, in which they relate as a single unit. In this state, the couple stops seeing each other as autonomous individuals. They stop showing respect and love for each other and, instead, relate out of form. When in a fantasy bond, a couple will often start to project onto each other and relate to each other based on projections…

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Recognizing Complex Trauma

…often discuss the concept of the “critical inner voice,” a term my father Robert Firestone, Ph.D. and I use to describe a negative self-perception we carry with us in our minds. All of us possess this inner critic, but those of us who are traumatized may experience this “voice” as a deeply destructive and terrifying enemy whose attacks on us can feel crippling and constant and can lead to even life-threatening self-destructive behavior. When a pe…

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Advantages of Dating After 40

…cs, choosing a real connection over what my father psychologist and author Robert Firestone refers to as a fantasy bond, an illusion of fusion in which two people seek a feeling of safety and familiarity by choosing people who fit with old identities. Couples in a fantasy bond tend to merge their identities, relating as a unit instead of two independent individuals By understanding our history, we can make a conscious effort to make different choi…

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The Self Under Siege: A New Model of Differentiation

…n innovative 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…

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