Search Results for: Robert Firestone

psychology strained father son relationships

The Psychology Behind Strained Father Son Relationships

…hostile and impatient presence in his mind. The American writer and poet, Robert Bly, gave voice to similar sentiments in his poem, “My Father’s Wedding 1924”, “…his skin was bark-like then, made rough to repel the sympathy he longer for, refused, and didn’t need.” These descriptions are representative of how men recall their fathers relating to them. But even more striking than the obvious damage and wounds, is the repressed longing. Many men ar…

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Just Be Kind: The Only Relationship Advice You’ll Ever Need

…eparate people. They begin to form an illusion of fusion or what my father Robert Firestone termed a “fantasy bond.” They start to overstep each other’s boundaries, replace substance with form and diminish real, personal interactions. Although it isn’t a conscious process, when a couple forms this type of fantasy, they stop engaging in small acts of kindness or even showing care and concern for each other.Without realizing it, couples form a fanta…

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Forgiveness: The Secret to a Healthy Relationship

…to the competitive goal of winning the argument. As my father psychologist Robert Firestone likes to say, when you engage like this, “You may win the battle, but you’ll lose the war.” In order to both come out victorious, try to have empathy for your partner and see the situation from his or her eyes. Try to recognize the ways you may be hurting yourself and the relationship by acting out hostility, coldness or holding a grudge. This process doesn…

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Do You Have an Honest Relationship?

…ices that emerge from how we really feel. When we form what my father, Dr. Robert Firestone, termed a “fantasy bond,” an illusion of connection that replaces real, loving ways of relating, we often begin to feel distant from our partner or lose interest. We may start making excuses for pulling away or we may still talk of being in love, meanwhile, we may not be engaging in behaviors that are loving toward our partner. To avoid this dishonest way o…

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Are You Giving Up on Love?

…hologist, I often reference the Fear of Intimacy, a book by my father, Dr. Robert Firestone, that aims to explain people’s resistance to love. When I introduce the theory surrounding fear of intimacy to people, they often say, “That sounds exactly like my husband!” or “My girlfriend totally has that issue.” It’s a concept people have trouble recognizing in themselves at first, because most people think they want love and don’t consciously feel afr…

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How to Tell if You’re in the Wrong Relationship

…rs are all characteristics of relating in a fantasy bond as my father, Dr. Robert Firestone delineated in his couples interaction chart, which contrasts relating in an ideal relationship to relating in a fantasy bond. Okay, now before you panic, everyone typically engages in some of these behaviors some of the time. We are human. We are flawed. And most of us, to varying degrees, are actually intolerant or afraid of love. As you investigate your r…

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Mental Health Apps: A Therapist in Your Pocket!

…econd section includes two video interviews with mental health experts Dr. Robert Woliver and Dr. Michael Britt, both of whom have created highly successful apps. The third section includes a case study with information on laypeople’s experience using mental health apps. The final section includes a detailed resource list with app examples for a variety of issues, and articles for further reading. *May fulfill pre-licensing and/or license renewal…

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Advanced Topics in Clinical Supervision

…lender, on the “Competency-Based Approach” and also includes an article by Robert Taibbi, LCSW on the stages of supervision with a review of the models of supervision. In the third section supervision is reviewed from a Gestalt-Humanistic point of view and from Dr. Gendlin’s Focus-based approach. The next section presents material by the Online Therapy Institute (OTI) on the rapidly growing field of cyber-supervision. The fifth section presents th…

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A Happy Couple Makes for Happy Kids

…ast annual American Psychological Association meeting in which researchers Robert Epstein and Shannon Fox examined the top 10 most effective “parenting competencies” associated with children’s health, success in school, happiness, and their relationship with their parent. Coming in 3rd in the list was “Relationship Skills” or the ability of the parents to maintain a happy relationship with their spouse as well as other people; 1st and 2nd were “Lo…

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Changing Your Sense of Identity

…Voice Therapy is a method developed by my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, to help people identify and act against their “critical inner voice,” a negative internal dialogue that criticizes and undermines us and others in ways that hurt and limit us in our lives. The steps of Voice Therapy help us to identify the destructive things we’re telling ourselves. Some of these are right at the surface. “You’re so stupid, fat, ugly, lazy…

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