If you read the last post in this series and thought projections were tricky, wait till you see what I’ve got for you now. You are ready to explore projective identification.
It works like this. Someone projects a quality on to you and, even though the quality does not describe you well, you go with it and end up exhibiting that quality, regardless. Continue reading
Here’s an obvious truth: when you first meet someone, you don’t know them. Even when you’ve met a dozen times, you still don’t know them. Oh, you pick up a few things, many of them subliminally; but most of what you think you know, you’ve projected on to them. Continue reading
Of all the feelings, love is perhaps the most complicated and the least likely to be summarized in a single blog post. Therefore, I’m not even going to try. What I will do, however, is show you the difference between true love and narcissism. Continue reading
You’ve seen Disney’s version of the Beauty and the Beast. If you’ve had a toddler, you’ve seen it a thousand times. Did you know that you may be acting it out in your own life? Do you realize it might be ruining everything?
You know the story: a charming young woman falls in love with a beastly man and, through her love, he is transformed into a prince. The ancient Greeks had elements of the plot in their myths of Eros and Psyche and Hades and Persephone. In fairy tales, you have ladies kissing frogs. Then there’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and, in our own time, a variation was developed in the Phantom of the Opera. The hope it offers is intoxicating. The picture of marriage seems true to life. Continue reading
For centuries, men have been putting women, and women have been putting themselves, into two categories, the Madonnas and the Whores. Consequently, they either get sex without love, or love without sex.
The Madonna is serious, pure, virginal, loving, forgiving, safe, and supportive. She washes the man’s socks. She raises his children. He can leave and she will still be there when he returns. She is his mother.
The Whore is fun, slutty, degraded, aggressive, hard, and wanton. She goes away when he’s done. He doesn’t have to wake up with her. He’s thrilled by her. She is his toy. Continue reading
One factor that commonly limits the effectiveness of any kind of counseling is that fact that, at the most, you are only in your shrink’s office for an hour every week or two. If long term behavioral change is called for, you must identify what change is necessary and practice it long enough and frequently enough to make it stick. An hour every week or two just ain’t enough time.
In couple’s counseling, the problem is worse. When you come as a couple, there is at least twice as much to talk about in the sessions. When a couple is trying to change their behavior, both must be willing to change at the same time. That’s a lot of moving parts to get going in the same direction at once.
This is why I often give homework. There’s not enough time in the sessions to talk about everything, much less try anything new. What you do in between sessions contributes far more to success than the sessions themselves. Continue reading
Take any two people and there will always be a natural variation between them regarding any characteristic.
There will always be one who is more strict with the kids, open to in-laws, careful with money, adventurous in bed, ambitious about career, social, self-confident, flirty, interested in a clean house, closer to family, better at math, permissive, more sharing of feelings, horny, generous to others, and on, and on, and on. Continue reading
