You Need to Know You're Great The one core factor in healthy self-esteem is the knowledge that you're great. Armed with that knowledge, a person becomes more resilient within relationships and recovers more readily from disaster. If you know you're great, you are less self-centered since focusing too exclusively on one's self is only necessary when you don't know you're great. Knowing you're great is, unfortunately not that easy a knowledge to develop, but to the extent that you complete that achievement, you and everyone with whom you choose to relate flourishes and thrives. The Failure of Empathy in Every Day Life We often lose empathy when a situation makes us vulnerable or when our self-esteem is challenged, but maintaining empathy is necessary in maintaining our connection to the world around us. Addictions: A Relationship to Remember The relationship of the addict to a drug is much like a torrid love affair that often, unfortunately, never ends. Codependency This concept, which basically means being addicted to addicts, is explained and defined. There is only one solution. Be willing to leave the addict. Bobo's Camouflage Pajamas From the Life of this Navy Psychologist. Breathe! Notice how you often don't breathe deeply enough, start to breathe better, and change your life. Creating Strength From Weakness Our greatest accomplishments and our greatest strengths are, strangely enough, always directly related to our most devastating inadequacies. Undoing the Bad Past/Bad Future Cycle Horrible experiences in ones past unfortunately lead to poor chances for a good future. This article discusses that process and points to ways it can be undone. Understanding Personality Styles in Couples Personality Development and Its Patterns in Couples. Sample Reward System Just Change the Target Behaviors. Good Discipline for Acting Out Kids Guidelines It's So Hard to Be Bad: Just Be Good! When you think about it, having bad behavior just makes everything worse for a kid. Really, when all is done and told, it's a lot easier to be good than bad. Histrionic Personality The Histrionic Personality is explained as involving drama that grows due to a lack of special feeling and the inability to take responsibility. Passive Aggressive Personality The Passive Aggressive Personality is explained as involving the inner conflict between pleasing others and pleasing ones self. The Narcissist Narcissistic Personality is not what it seems. Narcissists behave in a selfish manner because they have no self. They live only for the impression they make on others. Borderline Personality Borderline Personality involves the thwarted striving for independence within a context of abandonment, thus causing clinging with hope of becoming united, withdrawing to avoid being controlled, and rage to maintain control. But only a consistent relationship with a loving other who cannot be manipulated has any chance of helping the borderline recover. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Trying to be perfect has some advantages over the long haul, but it also causes interpersonal problems and leaves the obsessive compulsive vulnerable to the disasters they had believed they had avoided by trying to be perfect. The Other Personality Disorders Although the Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Passive-Aggressive and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorders are the most common to seek out psychotherapy, there are several others that do not generally volunteer for psychotherapy in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, these other personality types are likely equally common and thus become a part of the lives of many people equally frequently. Bipolar Disorder Being overly intense basically describes the bipolar condition. When extreme intensity is part of any disorder, bipolar disorder is likely to be diagnosed as a secondary diagnosis. Getting clients to understand their intensity can be a transformative first step in helping them overcome it. Psychotic Disorders Experiencing psychotic symptoms is perhaps the worst possible psychological experience. These symptoms arise from a combination of extreme emotional intensity and a deeply held feeling that such emotional intensity is too dangerous to express. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD is a devastating psychological disorder that is not well understood. Essentially its cause is the conflict between memory and pain. Traumatic experience is both impossible to remember or integrate and impossible to forget or avoid. The Writing Cure Writing helps people in many ways. In this article, specific procedures are presented to help people deal with insomnia and traumatic experiences. The Power and Control Addiction People sometimes need power and control over others to help them compensate for weakness and inadequacy in themselves. Nevertheless, power and control tactics often lead to great achievements. Achieving lasting relationships with others who really care, however, is not possible while dominating and controlling. Thus, as compelling as power and control might be, recovery from the addiction is necessary in forging the greatest achievement of all - love. Loss and Hope Loss can create alarming and devastating depression. This article examines several ways that loss can affect people, depending upon the health or lack thereof in their experiences, and outlines the keys to full grieving in each of the four developmental levels discussed. It Must Be Hard to Be A Girl Girls and women are held to a complex standard of expectations in the world of today. They must compete with men, yet stay true to their special feminine know-how. The choices they need to make in life often lead them to a life of doing it all. Unless they do try to do it all, most women will face some lack of fulfillment. If they spread themselves too thin, however, there's also a good chance they'll feel very little appreciation. |
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