Most relationships I encounter in my office are suffering from a lack of trust. I think everyone is asking the question, “can I trust you to do right by me?” By the time most have arrived in counseling, the answer to that question is probably a “I’m not sure” or Read more…
You don’t have to have parents who were alcoholics to develop any (or a lot) of these characteristics. All of us grow up in homes with imperfect parents. We develop coping mechanisms from growing up in these sometimes “crazy” family systems. Many of these coping mechanisms are listed below. If Read more…
I often get the question, “what can I do to change my relationship with wife/friend/co-worker?” (This usually means – “how can I change the other person?”) The answer to the first question is really simple: Just take one step. One small act of kindness. One gift of a compliment. One Read more…
On average, women speak around 25,000 words per day. Men clock in at around 10,000 words per day on average. This is pretty fascinating in and of itself, and is great knowledge to have as you and yours navigate communication. Regardless if this is true of you and yours or Read more…
March, 2012 Seeing the Real You It’s human nature to care what others think of us, but this nature can get us into trouble. If you care what others think, more than you think you ought to, then it’s a good chance you don’t know you. When we come to Read more…
One of my goals for 2012 was to write more. Beyond writing weekly for the online publication Start Marriage Right, I was able to share some thoughts and writings here on my counseling site. Below are the top 5 shared and viewed posts from the past year. Stop Trying to Read more…
http://youtu.be/0D-LsS4MuZk We’re all trying to make it in a grown up world. We’re all Tom Hanks’ character in the movie “Big.” Nothing more than a boy stuck inside a 30, 40, or 50 year olds body. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to stop living life as though it’s Read more…
One of my goals this year is to read more books. Of the dozen-plus books I’ve read so far, here are four that I suggest everyone read: Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction A dad reflects on his son’s addiction to drugs (meth). As a parent, this Read more…
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” ― Flannery O’ Connor On my way in to the office this morning, I heard a report from the Sandusky sex-abuse trail that a psychologist has deemed Jerry Sandusky as having a personality disorder. I believe they are Read more…
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted here, and I wanted to give a link to a new writing venture that I’ve undertaken. I’ll still be posting here, but I will be focusing my writing on relationships at Start Marriage Right. Thanks for stopping by.
The rise of self-promotion and narcissistic endeavors is ever growing. The public sharing of ones life is the modern day equivalent to having access to 500 million pen pals. We have less and less face-to-face interactions with people due to the popularity of twitter, facebook, and texting. And in this Read more…
Over the Christmas break I found a new game on my iPhone called tiny tower. The premise is pretty simple: build your own sky scraper, populate it with people and businesses, rinse and repeat. It’s wildly addictive in that you can spend tons of time in the game earning money Read more…
Where do you go when life shows it’s jagged edges, and impossible scenarios? Often times in the face of pain or fear, we look for the easy button. You know, the button that Staples has made famous. Just press that button and all the problems of life will fade away. Read more…
“The false self can dominate even extremely talented people who are likely to be drawn to careers where life can be lived vicariously, where within safe, protective limits they can deal with emotions and activities that they avoid in their personal lives because of the fears such emotions and activities Read more…
Symington, in Narcissism: A New Theory , suggests that in “people dominated by narcissistic currents there is a failure of separateness between themselves and others, and they will asume that you think in the same way that they think.” These ‘narcissistic currents’ are significant in corporate settings but it’s because Read more…