Search Results for: Robert Firestone

The Destructive Ways We Self-Parent as Adults

…istress. A “fantasy bond” was termed by my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, to describe a core defense mechanism that helped us maintain a sense of safety and security at times when we experienced overwhelming frustration, hurt, or even terror. For an infant, the fantasy of being merged with a caretaker can reduce feelings of hunger and frustration. This illusion of connection can serve as a compensation for inadequacies in their…

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4 Reasons to Take Ownership of Your Feelings

…rcy of our parents. In discussing this, my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, wrote, “Later as an adult, things happen that are sometimes beyond your control and understanding. However, the adult who is still playing the child victim role… just keeps noticing over and over that the situation is unreasonable, unfair or threatening but doesn’t make the appropriate adaptive responses.” 3. It stops us from digging deeper. Your biggest e…

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Protected: When Grief Goes Viral: Video and Resources

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Staying in Love While Staying Yourself

…s who we are. When a couple enters what my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, terms a “Fantasy Bond,” they start to replace substantive, loving actions with the form of being a couple. The practicalities and routines remain, but the liveliness starts to fizzle. To avoid this fantasy connection, it’s important to keep taking loving actions that our partner would experience as loving, to continue to be affectionate, make eye contact,…

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Are You Addicted to Your Relationship?

…ituations is that they have formed what my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, termed a “fantasy bond,” a largely subconscious connection with their partner in which they feel like they are not complete without the other person. This illusion of connection fosters a sense of safety or security that exacerbates the feeling of need toward the other person. However, when in a fantasy bond, the couple tends to favor the form over the sub…

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ways to beat insecurity

Three Ways to Beat Your Insecurity

…py is a cognitive/affective/behavioral approach developed by my father Dr. Robert Firestone to help people challenge this critical inner voice. There are five important steps to Voice Therapy. Step 1 Vocalize or write down your self-critical thoughts in the second person. For instance, instead of writing “I’m so stupid, ugly, worthless, boring,” you would write, “You’re so stupid, ugly, worthless, boring.” This process helps to separate these vici…

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Deep Sadness Can Deepen Love

…d negative. Sadness is a normal emotion To be sad is to be human. In 1980, Robert Plutchik developed one of the most influential classification approaches for general emotional responses. Sadness was one of the eight primary emotions he identified (the others being anger, fear, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy). He proposed that these “basic” emotions are biologically primitive and have a high survival value. Sadness is not only a fu…

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Genuine Relating in an Imperfect World

…month, I finished revising and updating The Fantasy Bond with my husband, Robert Firestone. While working on this book, now called Challenging the Fantasy Bond, I became aware of what a delicate balance it is to keep a relationship real. In a romantic relationship, people have a tendency to either move toward idealizing their partner or going in the other direction and being overly critical of them. These reactions result from the unconscious bel…

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What Does It Mean to Be Feminine or Masculine?

…human beings, regardless of our gender. In his book, Beyond Death Anxiety, Robert Firestone writes that these are “the ability to love and to feel compassion for self and others, the capacity for abstract reasoning and creativity, the ability to experience deep emotion, the desire for social affiliation, the ability to set goals and develop strategies to accomplish them, an awareness of existential concerns, the potential to experience the sacredn…

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The Key to a Long and Happy Life

…py lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. The study’s lead researcher Robert Waldinger concluded that “it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how [the study’s subjects] were going to grow old. It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.” These relationships extend beyond our significant other and immediate fa…

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