Archives for Relationships & Love
Clinicians on the Couch: 10 Questions with Therapist Anna Osborn
In our regular interview series, we feature different therapists every month, asking them all sorts of questions about their professional and personal lives. We delve into what they love...
Book Review: How We Live Now: Redefining Home & Family in the 21st Century
I’m on the other side of fifty and childless. When I talk with friends in the same situation about how we will live as we age, inevitably somebody floats the...
Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship
While relationships can be problematic for a number of reasons, Lisa Aronson Fontes reminds us that sometimes the hidden issues can be most damaging. In Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control...
The Barriers to True Forgiveness
As holiday and other family gatherings draw near, so does the pressure to be gracious, forgiving, happy and “normal.” Our expectations of ourselves and sense of others’ expectations can...
OCD and Spouses
Regardless of whether you knew your partner had obsessive-compulsive disorder before you married, my guess is life together hasn’t always been easy. Neither my husband nor I have OCD...
The ‘Affair’ in Your Marriage Might Be Your Therapist
Corinne is 26 years old and has been married to Ted for 5 years. She worries that her marriage isn’t what it should be. She thinks her husband is...
Chronic Depression and Codependency
Dysthymia, or chronic depression, is a common symptom of codependency; however, many codependents aren’t aware that they’re depressed. Because the symptoms are mild, most people with chronic depression wait...
Recovering from an Affair
Every couple has a stated or assumed contract that determines what is and is not okay when attracted to other people. Cheating is when one member of a couple...
Creating Trust in a Relationship
Trust is the glue of life. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships. ~ Stephen Covey “I never dreamed he would cheat on me.” A week ago, my...
Toxic Friendships: Knowing the Rules & Dealing with the Friends Who Break Them
Both popular and scholarly writings about relationships are overwhelmingly about marriage and romantic relationships. Friendship gets short shrift, despite the fact that just about everyone has friends, and Americans...
The Genius of Opposites: How Introverts & Extroverts Achieve Extraordinary Results
Introversion has become a hot topic of late. You can hardly get online these days without stumbling on often-peevish introverts letting the world know that they are no longer...
The Age of Scientific Sexism: How Evolutionary Psychology Promotes Gender Profiling & Fans the Battle of the Sexes
Evolutionary psychology has offered a way of thinking about gender differences in sex, desire, and romance that has been tremendously influential. The standard narrative has infiltrated some of the...
Donald Trump and the Narcissistic Illusion of Grandiosity
Donald Trump has grown an empire of wealth and power, but is it enough? He admits that it isn’t the money that motivates him (The Art of the Deal,...
Relationship OCD and the Doors of Uncertainty
When Adam was about 9 years old, he began to experience contamination obsessive-compulsive disorder. At 14, his fears about possibly getting sick subsided, but he began questioning his religious...
How Many Friends Do You Need?
Among the most poignant letters I receive as an advice columnist are those from lonely people. Here are some typical samples. The letters are real but I’ve changed names...
The Odd Woman & the City: A Memoir
Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City is a brief, beautifully rendered memoir by one of the premier writers of our time. Odd Woman is about solitude and...
When a Loved One Becomes Disabled
When my friend’s 25-year-old son suffered a head injury in a major car accident, death seemed like a certain outcome. Instead, he recovered. But medications caused him to gain...
Renew Your Wows: Seven Powerful Tools to Ignite the Spark & Transform Your Relationship
My partner and I sat across from each other on our bed as I explained how this exercise worked. Author and psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber, I said, calls it the “check-in.” My partner...
The Biggest Cause of Anxiety
Anxiety is apprehension of experiencing fear in the future. The danger feared isn’t imminent and may not even be known or realistic. In contrast, fear is an emotional and...
Is it OK for Women to Abuse Men?
Media representations of the relationships between men and women reflect and reinforce cultural norms and beliefs. For many years, there has been a trend for TV commercials to depict...
Post-Romantic Stress Disorder: What to Do When the Honeymoon is Over
If you’re like me, you’re probably a bit turned off by the idea of post-romantic stress disorder and wonder what the ultimate purpose of a book with such a title might...
The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists & Rebels
Psychotherapist Susan Pease Gadoua and journalist Vicki Larson know that marriage is in trouble. Close to half of all marriages end in divorce. Growing numbers of adults are raising...
Book Review: Tiny Beautiful Things
Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here. ~ Cheryl Strayed Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things features a beautiful collection of well-crafted, undeniably relatable letters, along with...
Book Review: Rethinking Narcissism
While developing an awareness-raising campaign for the identification and treatment of psychological abuse for the nonprofit I work with, I delved deep into researching personality traits and disorders that...
Growing Yourself Up: How to Bring Your Best to All of Life’s Relationships
There may be no more challenging pursuit than managing relationships, and there is certainly no shortage of recommendations on how to do so. In Growing Yourself Up: How to Bring Your...
