…d is formed, it is important to realize that most of us are afraid of real intimacy and closeness. It contradicts our negative feelings about ourselves and threatens our self-protective defenses. Being vulnerable to another person arouses anxiety and fear in us. At this point, we often escape into a fantasy of union to avoid relating on a deeper, more intimate level. When a bond develops, the couple fails to distinguish between each other as separ…
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…ghout life. When early childhood relationships are sources of overwhelming fear, or when absent, insecure or disorganized attachment leaves a person feeling helpless and alone, the mind needs some way to cope. A child may latch onto thoughts like Don’t trust, it’s not safe! Don’t reach out, don’t be a burden to anyone! Don’t dwell on how you feel, just move along! These ideas may help a person cope when they hurt so badly every day and just need t…
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…ard those who make our dreams come true, they ruin our dreams.” In Fear of Intimacy, I described how people tend to react with suspicion and distrust when their core identity is disturbed by being loved. An unavoidable truth about human beings is that very often the beloved is compelled to punish the lover who appreciates and acknowledges his or her positive qualities. When people have been hurt in their earliest relationships, they fear being hur…
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…o, but that he also really enjoyed the tender moments between them. 3. The Fear of Becoming Your Mother or Father While we are aware of fears like not waking up to the baby crying or forgetting to put wipes in the diaper bag, there are more psychological concerns we carry with us as new parents that don’t necessarily rise to consciousness but that influence us all the same. One of these is the fear of becoming like our own parents. We are horrifie…
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…also called on friends and family and gathered them close. In sharing his fear and horror at his situation, he has found tremendous support. In his memoir, Barkan recounts a question that had been posed to him by his therapist early on with his diagnosis: What, if anything, might ALS give back? At first, he struggled to answer, as he was only aware of losing so much. “Life and death were both moving quickly,” he writes, “and my daily existence wa…
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…impact continues to affect the individual throughout his/her lifespan. The fear of death not only causes people to reinforce the fantasy bond, but extends the core defense to society in the form of group identification. Primitive feelings that initially characterized the fantasy bond with one’s parents are transferred onto new figures and ideologies in an attempt to gain a sense of personal immortality. Thereafter, people’s conformity to the belie…
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…living past hurts, between accepting warmth and acting cold… and sometimes even between summer weddings and winter divorces. Read more in Dr. Lisa Firestone’s book, Sex Love and Intimate Relationships…
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…reatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse (Guilford Substance Abuse) by Lisa M. Najavits, PhD Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors: A Clinician’s Guide, by Lisa Ferentz For Adolescents, Adults and Health Care Providers Letting Go of Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Workbook of Hope and Healing by Lisa Ferentz Recovery Support Groups Alcoholics Anonymous Al-Anon Al-Ateen Adult Children of Alcoholics Women for Sobriety SMART Recov…
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…ther, the assets may wither or may be overbalanced by the liability of the fear of being a woman.” Feelings of fear and guilt in relation to her mother can cause a woman to turn her back on her own personal goals, to retreat from her sexuality, or to withdraw from being close to her partner. Women who pull back in these ways feel bound to their mothers, not by a genuine sense of closeness, but by an imagined connection or fantasy bond that was a s…
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…mediately. I mean, people, they couldn’t function. I would say the deepest fear that human beings have as I have seen it, as I have observed it over the years is the fear of the disintegration of the self. Dr. James Gilligan on Violence The main social and economic causes of violence – and I’ll add political causes – are those that divide the population into the superior and the inferior, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor. The more hi…
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