Defenses formed in childhood hurt adult relationships. Most people have fears of intimacy and are self-protective and at the same time are terrified of being alone. Their solution to their emotional dilemma is to form a fantasy bond. This illusion of connection and closeness allows them to maintain an imagination of love and loving while… Read more »
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There is always a lot going on between two people in a relationship. But very often, much of what goes wrong in a relationship has to do with what’s going on in our own minds. Most of us have a constant dialogue running in our heads, analyzing our relationship and informing us on how to… Read more »
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“In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love When it comes to our relationships, the expectation of a perfect union or… Read more »
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In my 25 years as a therapist, I’ve worked with countless couples facing a broad spectrum of challenges. Yet, despite the diversity between them in age, occupation, or origin, I’m amazed at the similarities in the patterns and pitfalls that couples fall into. When two people walk into my office and start discussing their relationship,… Read more »
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To the extent that people don’t want what they say they want they are duplicitous in their verbal communications. This applies to a wide area of life pursuits but is particularly relevant to love relationships. What we wish for in fantasy is not necessarily tolerable in reality. Early in life, when we experience rejection and… Read more »
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When the topic of infidelity spills into our daily dose of media, we may say we saw it coming, or we may react with shock. Either way, we don’t exactly look away. Without even meaning to, we learn details, names, sources and suspicions. Most of us would admit that there is little point in speculating… Read more »
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Countless couples complain of losing the “spark” in their relationship. Some chalk it up to evolved differences, a slow growing apart, or sheer familiarity. The wave of “deadness” that can submerge a relationship after the first thrilling months or years have caused many couples to lose hope, and even look elsewhere for the excitement of… Read more »
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As a therapist, I often hear couples complain that whenever one partner tries to get close, the other pulls away. It’s a painful reality that love isn’t always as easy to give and receive as we’d like to think. Many people have developed defenses that make them intolerant of too much love, attention or affection…. Read more »
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You don’t need to be a psychologist to note the very harsh effects of a breakup on a person’s mental health. When a relationship ends, humiliation, rage, loneliness, anguish and grief all seem to simultaneously show up at the door, marching in arm-in-arm to parade noisily around our psyche. Evicting these emotions is a matter… Read more »
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The latest Twilight movie “Breaking Dawn” is already breaking records. Young fans clamored and camped out on dirty sidewalks for hours (even days) to make it to Friday’s midnight premiere. Walking past one such line, I noticed a father dropping off a shrieking group of dressed up 15-year-old girls from a stretched hummer, rented just… Read more »
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