Relationship Unconscious

Whether I am serving in the role of executive coach or psychotherapist, most of my clients inevitably discuss problems they are having with a narcissistic manager. Elsewhere I have described the increasing prevalence of narcissism, a trend that ironi...

The 11 psychiatric diagnoses that make up the Anxiety Disorders category of the current psychiatric nomenclature center on the manifestation of worry, concern about future threats, ruminations about performance and social acceptance, and avoidance be...

Despite the notoriety of the 2016 publication of Angela Duckworth's Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, it appears that a significant contingent of contemporary adolescents is trending toward attitudes and behaviors directly opposing the val...

Polarization is a common dynamic among couples that is unconsciously motivated and very hard to detect. When polarization occurs in relationships, it often yields conflict, distress, and impasse, with many couples who are polarized ultimately breakin...

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, artist, and Latin and Greek scholar who is perhaps best known for his study of tragedy in ancient Greek mythology. Nietzsche conceptualized an important element of tragedy, the artistic depiction ...

As parents, most if not all of us probably hope that our own children will absorb the very best of us, our positive personality tendencies, our industrious habits, and our moral standards and values, and disregard the rest. The last thing we want to ...

Often the solutions to many problems encountered in daily living and in contemporary relationships are not that difficult to reach. In fact, it seems to me that we often know what we need to do, as the issue at hand is not typically something we do n...

Counteridentification is an important term in psychological theory and in the literature on psychotherapy. It is also implicated in numerous problems that many adults experience. It refers to the common unconscious motivation in pre-adolescence and a...

Many approaches to self-improvement and personal change are largely focused on self-understanding, on learning about one’s problematic or limiting beliefs, tendencies, and self-destructive actions.   Although this perspective on the internal, persona...

There is an emerging body of scientific research indicating that the human brain is impacted by social experience in ways we did not realize previously. In the last several decades we learned that the brain is malleable, a discovery that continues to...