News Articles

The difference between unconditional love and unconditional relationships. By Jeremy Nicholson M.S.W., Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Do you believe in unconditional love? I am asked this question frequently in discussions... When I respond with a "yes", my questioners are usually puzzled. They wonder how I can believe in unconditional love, yet discuss very "conditional" dating and relating techniques such as reciprocal gift-giving, withholding forgiveness, rewarding a partner, etc. After all, they assume, if you love someone unconditionally and truly bond with them, then you don't ever try to influence, limit, persuade, or set boundaries with them...right? Their confusion over [...]

Try these five tips when you are choosing friends and mates. By Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Many of us have had the experience of letting someone get close to us and then later regretting it. Toxic relationships can take many forms. We may have thought that someone was our best friend until she started making fun of us behind our back. Or, we may have idealized our handsome new love interest without really noticing that he gets drunk every night, flirts with other women, and gets irritated when we complain. Some of us spend years in unhealthy [...]

I Always Cra at Weddings by Sara Goff Published in 2015, Sara Goff's novel, I Always Cry at Weddings, is about Ava Larson, a young woman who is willing to lose everything in order to find true love. When it seems that everything is going wrong, Ava feels a loss of identity and the world seems different and dark. She starts to fear men and worries whether or not she would be ready for the right man when he presented himself. But she decides to live in faith, not fear. Goff's novel is a story that demonstrates the power of [...]

By Teddi Dineley Johnson Courtesy of The Nation's Health Unless you’re shipwrecked on a deserted island, you probably enjoy a handful of close relationships. From spouses to children to friends, parents, siblings and significant others, healthy relationships build self-esteem, improve mental and emotional health and help you live a fuller life. “Relationships are — not surprisingly — enormously important for health, and there are lots of studies on the biological processes that account for the link between relationships and health,” says psychology professor Arthur Aron, PhD, director of the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at New York’s Stony Brook University. The quality [...]

Push back against "silent agreements," the unspoken rules of your relationship. Linda D. Anderson, Ph.D., Sonia R. Banks, Ph.D., and Michele L. Owens, Ph.D. of Silent Agreements Couresty of Psychology Today Your earliest relationships have a great influence on many of your behaviors, decisions, and conscious and unconscious motives. Silent agreements are the unspoken “rules” of your relationships. They grow from the assumptions, expectations, and beliefs that you don’t talk about but still hold others accountable for. They show up in every kind of relationship, and as you read on, you’ll probably discover that you’re participating in several silent agreements. [...]

Use these 5 strategies for more productive disagreements. By Seth J. Gillihan Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today No matter how strong your romantic relationship is, at some point you’re going to have disagreements. And while never arguing is an unrealistic goal, arguing better is an essential one. Thankfully all of us can improve the quality of our communication, including the way we argue. In my recent discussion with communication specialist Oren Jay Sofer on the Think Act Be podcast, I asked for his guidance on how we can communicate more effectively. He noted the following five principles for transforming our [...]

By Steven Stosny, Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today It turns toddler love into fulfilling mature connection. We fall in love in the Toddler brain, the emotional, impulsive, and volatile limbic system, which reaches structural maturity by age 3. We stay in love in the profoundest and most stable part of the Adult brain — the prefrontal cortex, which reaches full myelination at around 28. Toddler love is filled with wonder and joy at first, but inevitably reeks of conflict and pain due to its self-obsession and inability to see other people’s perspectives. Adult love rises from our deepest, most humane values of [...]

Healthy relationships are available to everyone, you just need to know what they require to exist. Here are five things that all healthy relationships require: By Ruby Fremon, Contributor Courtesy of Huff Post Toxic. Abusive. Destructive. Unhealthy. These aren't words that we'd want to associate with relationships, yet so many of us have experienced this or are still experiencing this. Why? This is a question I used to ask myself often... I was that girl. The one caught in a string of toxic, abusive, destructive and downright unhealthy relationships. I would commit the same mistakes over and over again, barely [...]

Learning to break free from love addiction By Ann Smith Courtesy of Psychology Today Here's a Quick Quiz: Did you once think that if only someone loved you in that "special way" you would be happy for the rest of your life? Were you/Are you pre-occupied with the notions of love as expressed in music, movies and fiction? Have you ever tried to talk yourself into loving someone you weren't particularly fond of because you needed the love NOW? Have you felt the need to prop up or do a total makeover on your partner early on in your relationship [...]

By Abby Rodman Courtesy of Huffington Post Because emotional abuse has become such a popular topic in the self-help and psychology fields, you may already be familiar with some of its signs, which may include withdrawal of affection, name-calling, and control. But if you suspect you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship, you may be so immersed in it that you can’t read the very destructive handwriting on the wall. Emotional abuse becomes, in a sense, your blurred normal. The term “emotional abuse” is thrown around a lot these days and that’s a dangerous thing. To respect its victims, we have [...]