“I’m really anxious - you haven’t spoken to me since last night!” Nico said to his partner Tamara when she nagged him to book his vacation dates at work so they could plan the family vacation. “I’m anxious that it’ll be too late and we won’t get a good cabin on the cruise ship,” [...]
Here’s how I helped David last week – Am I a pedophile becuase of a dream I had? David, a 37-year-old electrical engineer had been working on his sense of entrapment in romantic relationships for some time in his indivdual therapy with me. Recently he brought a dream to a session and it turned [...]
Poppy let out a big sigh as her 32-year-old brother Josh said that he had tried her latest suggestion of walking in nature motivation but it hadn’t helped with his fatigue and low motivation. Josh’s big sister had been trying to buoy him up for as long as she could remember, to no effect. [...]
Howard couldn’t commit to his girlfriend Melinda. He was torn between her and his parents. He didn’t want to choose, and hoped that Melinda, a 33-year-old food writer would tolerate his umbilical connection with his parents; because being cut off from them was worse than the idea of losing Melinda. Howard couldn’t separate from [...]
Mandy vehemently denied agreeing to take the kids to their swim meet on Saturday morning, despite eagerly agreeing to do so the previous evening. Troy, her 40-year-old husband was astounded. He recalled her excitement along with the kids, anticipating digging into their favorite foods at their local weekend brunch eatery. But come Saturday morning, [...]
Silence between couples, especially between Max and Alysia was nothing new. Sometimes the silences were short lived as wounds were licked, but other times the silences were annihilating with no sense of recovery. For Max the silence between couples was a sign of great uncertainty, fueling his insecurity. The thundering silence in response to [...]
The emptiness of letting go was just as hard three years after 37-year-old Marion’s marriage ended as it had been when her husband called it a day, putting the fault squarely on her. She felt rubbished and longed for her ex-partner Simon to acknowledge his role in the failure of their marriage. This wish [...]
Helplessness is scary and destabilizing. Helplessness evokes the need to be rescued, and excused from one's ineptitude. It’s seen as a negative; a sham or overdramatization. Helplessness is regarded as a sign of immaturity, neediness and over dependency in our society – except when that helplessness is sanctioned as cute and or adorable when [...]
Sexual promiscuity evokes an image of routinely sleeping around with multiple partners, and being okay with it. Sexual promiscuity makes light of emotional ties, making it easy to go from one to another. Sexual promiscuity involves getting high on new experiences while playing out fantasies that would be shameful or taboo in a committed [...]
“Stop being so defensive!” is a common missile thrown by one partner at the other, in an effort to defend their self-image. It’s the age old game of “I’m not perfect, but neither are you!” There is always a tussle for who is the angel and who is the devil during interactions where insecure [...]
