…has it in for us. The language of this inner critic is what my father Dr. Robert Firestone has long referred to as the “critical inner voice.” This voice is like a sadistic internalized coach or commentator. It is always there to critique, punish, and undermine us. In many ways, it is a lens through which we filter our experience, and it is very much a contributor to our loneliness. It puts us down in relation to others, makes us feel awkward or…
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…at is vital, independent, and attractive to the other person. Writer, poet Robert Bly, offered insight into this phenomenon. He observed from his work with men that many boys growing up are more sensitive and able to care about their partner’s feelings and health. They are better at sharing in domestic responsibilities such as childcare and household chores. They may be more emotionally attentive to others, and yet, they’re not always in tune with…
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…d punishes us for our mistakes. This is the side of us that my father, Dr. Robert Firestone has called the “anti-self.” In my and my father’s work, we often talk about how and why this anti-self emerges and how to challenge the negative line of thinking it perpetuates, which we call the “critical inner voice.” One exercise we ask people to try is writing down their self-critical thoughts in the second person (i.e. “You are such a loser. You can’t…
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…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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…es and influences us to withdraw from life and to not act in our interest. Robert Firestone calls this enemy within the “critical inner voice.” When we take action that reflects the life-affirming part of us, we are also taking action against the critical inner voice. When we stop a negative behavior and enact a positive one in its place, our critical inner voice is threatened and tries to get us back in line. If you conceptualize it as a maliciou…
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…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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…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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…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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…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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…mstances, but they can go on to hurt us in our adult lives. My father, Dr. Robert Firestone, in his comprehensive theory of human behavior, Separation Theory, contends that the core conflict for all human beings is whether to live a life of feeling or to attempt to suppress our feelings in an effort to block out pain, from both interpersonal relationships and from existential issues. The problems that arise from attempting to deny our pain are man…
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