Divorce challenges the basic sense of who you are, who you’ve been, and who you’ll become. Healing from a divorce is not like getting over the flu where one rests, drinks lots of fluids and comes out the other side good as new.
Surviving a divorce is much more like recovering from a traumatic accident in which you...
Ask anyone who has been through a divorce and they will tell you it rocks the foundation of your being, leaves you feeling lonely, flawed, undesirable, enraged, and hopeless, to name a few emotions.
During my divorce twenty-seven years ago, I was in desperate need of a roadmap to help me to better understand what went wrong –...
People are always asking me "How can I can make room for both my needs and my partner’s needs in our relationship?" They go on to say that, more often than not, one or the other gets their way, which inevitably leads to resentments.
What they are really asking me is "How do we create a feeling of mutuality without undermining...
A boundary is something that marks a limit. Think of psychological boundaries as guidelines that preserve your individuality from your partner’s. They comprise your uniqueness – your history, experiences, interests, personality, and values….your “you-ness.”
The terms “toxic,” “dysfunctional,” and “codependent” are used to describe relationships that are not working. Although experts decipher differences in their meanings, the terms are often used interchangeably. That is because they all...
As part of my professional training, I spent many years studying psychoanalytic theory and technique. In short, my job was to help my clients examine past relationships for the purpose of understanding their present ones. The goal of the therapy was to develop Self-awareness.
After years of clinical work helping people to develop insight...
In my clinical practice, a very common reaction to the loss of a partner is “I don’t know who I am anymore.” Sound familiar?
One of my clients aptly referred to his post-divorce aloneness as the “panic of the I.” He compared his feelings to those of a toddler who feels the world is safe and friendly until his...
Your divorce has thrown you into a very lonely place full of conflicted feelings of rejection and longing, love and hate, remorse and rage, not to mention sadness and relief. While you used to have a counterpart to help you through hard times, now you are on your own without a solid grasp on who you are as an individual. This is what I refer...
Simply put, empathy is understanding: the sensing of another person’s underlying feelings, wants, and emotional dynamics – looking at the world through their lenses – “What would I be feeling if I were him or her?”...
The following shocking divorce statistics are from the U.S. Census Bureau:
Learn WHY your marriage/relationship came apart, the PART you played in it, and most importantly, HOW to empower yourself to move forward to ensure that these issues don’t occur in your future romantic relationships (to virtually “divorce-proof” them).