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Remember when you were a kid and saw Dracula in his cofin? Remember how he would arise after dark and turn into a bat? Remember how he would fly in through a double window riding a blast of fog and wind? Remember how he would attach himself to the neck of a luscious woman while she slept? Remember how even though she became a vampire herself, she still remained under Dracula's control? Do you remember thinking that this was romantic? If so, this article is for you.
Many years ago, I met a man and woman who were deeply in love. They had married also many years ago and had two kids.
When they were courting, the man and woman ran into episodic eruptions in their relationship. They fought, for example, when they got together with members of the
man's family for holiday dinners. The woman felt left out because the man paid little attention to her and instead spent time talking with his parents and siblings.
Expert Advice: Dr. Dana Cogan is a forensic psychiatrist and experienced mental health professional who has ofered valuable insights and practical strategies in his book to help readers navigate the complexities of high-conflict divorce.
When the woman tried to tell the man about her feelings, he told her that she was overreacting and that her talk of jealousy was unpleasant to hear. He made her feel that there was something wrong with her. She lost self esteem and wished that she had never shown her feelings to him.
Even so, the woman tried to tell the man how she felt each time the situation came up. Each time, he responded as before. The woman decided that she would work on herself and stop feeling neglected. The man was right. She was overreacting.
Believing that she had to fix the problem herself, she stopped talking to the man about her feelings. He did not seem to notice.
The man and woman ignored the problem in their relationship until the woman was involved in a serious automobile accident. She was bedridden for months and had to depend on the man for her daily survival.
It was an intense time for her. She was in nearly constant pain and felt demoralized as a result of her inability to do much of anything. She had minimal contact with other people and felt isolated. She worried about whether or not her injuries would heal. She also worried that she would have to live the rest of her life handicapped.
At first the man was very attentive. He was there to fix her meals, take her to medical appointments, and change her bedding. Within relatively short order, however, he became tired of the sacrifice he had to make and wished that the woman would take care of herself. Although he continued to make sure that her physical needs were met, he was gone most of the time working and spending time with friends. The woman felt lonely and depressed.
When the woman again attempted to tell the man of her emotional needs, he cut her of and told her that he had his own life to lead. He felt that he had been doing a good job of
taking care of her and did not appreciate her lack of appreciation. Besides, she was very needy and hard to get along with as she had been throughout their time together. Before giving her a chance to respond, he left the room.
The woman was again alone. It gave her time to think. She thought back to their first meeting.
The woman had met the man at an ofice party in a hotel late one Friday night. The hotel banquet room was dimly lit and smoky. The woman was about to leave when the man came out of the shadows and engaged her by telling her that he was disappointed that she was leaving the party so soon. He said that he had been watching her all night and wanted to get to know her. The woman felt an immediate deep attraction to the man and agreed to stay a while longer.
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They danced and drank and laughed until the party was over. The woman loved the man's piercing looks and his apparent strength and power. She allowed herself to be maneuvered to a hotel room and experienced passion she had never felt before.
They parted after several hours when the man said that he had to leave because of a busy work schedule the next day.
The woman asked the man to spend the night and hold her. He refused. He was not there for her emotionally. He never had been. He had been out to satisfy his needs without regard to hers all of the time that they were together. The truth made the woman feel sad, but also empowered her.
he woman looked at the relationship more realistically and came up with example after example of the man’s self-centered dependence on her. She took care of the household and yardwork while he went to his health club. She managed the money (which she also earned) and took responsibility for investing it while he visited his family and occasionally looked for a job. She tried to include him in taking care of the responsibilities they had, yet was met with an argument unless his involvement suited his own individual interests. The man was happy to be involved in making decisions if there was something he could get for himself. If she left him out of these decisions, she would experience his wrath. She loved him and was under his control.
Contrary to scientific opinion, vampires are real. There are bloodsuckers. We all know a number of them. They come in all shapes, sizes, sexes, ages, and colors. They can be found at work, at school, at home, and just about anywhere that blood is to be found.
You can usually spot vampires if you know what to look for. They always have a hungry look in their eyes. Their needs can be overwhelming. They are ravenous and
demanding. They will look you over and over to see if you are willing to satisfy them by parting with your blood.
When a vampire believes that you are willing to give up your essence to keep him or her alive, this creature will inevitably show interest in having a relationship with you to keep the supply flowing. You will find yourself hooked by some aspect of the vampire that you find attractive. They are good at reading you.
So how do you keep yourself safe? Hanging garlic around your neck works well to keep vampires away. Unfortunately, garlic will keep everyone else away, too.
Instead, you might try the following. Learn to identify people with a vampire mentality. See if they have been bloodsuckers in the past. Chances are you have not been their first victim. These guys and gals live a long time.
Learn about what makes you vulnerable to being sucked dry. Don't expose your neck before you are confident that you know how to check for teeth or before your neck is strong enough to resist being punctured.
If you are caught in a vampire’s spell, get far enough away to be safe and get help from family, friends, and people who have experience with vampires.
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Vampires leave you alone if they think that they will not get your blood. If you resist the vampire’s spell and stop feeding him or her your blood, you’ll have taken the first step toward freeing yourself. If the vampire cannot adjust to being deprived and goes for your neck even though he or she is aware of how depleting this set-up is for you, it may be that you will need to drive a stake into the vampire’s heart by ending the relationship and fly away.
Most people who came to see me when I was still practicing as a forensic psychiatrist were stuck in maladaptive patterns, unhealthy relationships, depressed moods, storms of anxiety, unproductive ways of thinking, poor decision-making, and other states of ill health. They often felt frustrated, demoralized, helpless, and ashamed. Most people who came to see me were looking for ways to become unstuck.
Are you feeling stuck in patterns that hinder your progress?
Take the first step towards overcoming obstacles and reclaiming your path with insights from my book. As a mental health therapist, I encourage you to explore practical strategies to move forward and achieve emotional freedom.
Here is what I told them. Because you are stuck does not meant that you are inadequate. It does not mean either that you are doomed. It means that you are temporarily blocked by one obstacle or another that is interfering with your ability to move forward. To become unstuck requires that you take steps to free yourself. I recommend that you:
Feeling overwhelmed by challenges in relationships or personal growth? Discover actionable advice tailored by a behavioral health therapist in my book. Dive into proven techniques to navigate high conflict situations and empower yourself to break free from stagnation.
Feeling overwhelmed by challenges in relationships or personal growth? Get advice tailored by me as a behavioral health therapist in my book. Read proven techniques to navigate high conflict situations and motivate yourself to break free from stagnation.
Once you have taken a good look at what is getting in your way, you need to develop a plan of attack. The obstacle is not likely to remove itself.
Not all obstacles can be maneuvered easily, especially those that are complex and reinforced by others. If you have examined the obstacle and failed to get past it, you may be dealing with an obstacle that you cannot get beyond without help. You may need special knowledge to overcome it. In that case, you would do well to:
Are you ready to break free from emotional barriers and prosper? As a mental health provider, I invite you to explore my book's comprehensive guidance on overcoming obstacles. Prepare yourself with the right knowledge to enhance resilience and seek expert help when needed to navigate life's toughest challenges efectively.
Even the strongest among us is unable to get unstuck without seeing an expert. Yes, I’m talking about seeing a therapist. They will not look down on you because you run into an obstacle. They know that overcoming obstacles requires help. After all, they are people, too.
A 34-year-old man saw a psychiatrist because of serious problems in his relationships. No one seemed to like him. He lived as a hermit, finally getting to the point that he could no longer tolerate the isolation. Although it was the hardest thing he had ever done, he decided to seek professional help.
The man told the psychiatrist about his inability to find someone who truly cared about him. Every time he became involved with other people, he ended up feeling that they had lied about their feelings about him. Although they said they liked him, he felt deep down they were just being phony.
The man told the psychiatrist that his mother had been the same way. She had never wanted him and even tried to have an abortion. He had been nothing but trouble as far as she was concerned and could never do anything right. She often put him in his bedroom and left him alone for hours just to be away from him.
When they were with other people, her attitude about him changed. She became afectionate and loving, what he had wished for when they were alone. This hurt him deeply because it reminded him of what he didn’t have.
Are you struggling with unresolved feelings from your past afecting your present relationships? Read my book where I, as a psychiatric therapist wrote the book to help you as a mental health provider understand and overcome transference issues to foster healthier connections.
The psychiatrist felt bad for his patient and decided that he would do his best to help him feel better. He empathized with his pain, provided emotional support, and reassured him that one day he would have a warm and loving relationship.
After a few months of weekly meetings, the patient had made no progress. He was still alone and unhappy. He was stuck. The psychiatrist pointed this out and encouraged him to take steps to develop a relationship that would satisfy his needs. The patient resisted.
The patient’s resistance frustrated the psychiatrist who ofered stronger encouragement. The patient still resisted.
After this back-and-forth maneuvering had gone on long enough, the psychiatrist sat back to reexamine the problem. In response, the patient became quiet and withdrawn. This piqued the psychiatrist’s curiosity, and he asked the patient what he was thinking.
The patient said that he had suspected all along that the psychiatrist would one day show his true feelings and that that day had finally come. Confused, the psychiatrist asked what he was talking about. The patient said that he knew the psychiatrist would one day give up on him because the psychiatrist’s caring had been fake.
This startled the psychiatrist who reassured the patient that his concern was genuine and that he had done his best to help him overcome his dificulty with other people. The patient said that the psychiatrist had just appeared to try and that he was actually only interested in collecting a fee.
As time went on, the patient because less and less conversant. The psychiatrist decided to show him that he was reacting because of his relationship with mother who did not care about him. He explained that his mother made him feel unloved when she put him in his room and left him there. The patient was now putting himself in his room. He explained that the patient had come to view him as being like his mother when that was far from the truth. The patient would hear nothing of it.
The patient insisted that the psychiatrist was just like his mother when he pulled back, evidence that the psychiatrist did not really like him just like the other people in his life.
Are you ready to break free from patterns of negative transference? Get insights from mental health experts like myself through my book. I’ve ofered practical guidance to overcome 0emotional hurdles and build fulfilling relationships based on present reality.
The psychiatrist didn’t know what he could do to help his patient. He knew that if he didn’t act quickly, the patient would leave therapy feeling just as bad as when he came in, if not worse. He decided to take drastic action.
Before he saw the patient, the psychiatrist wrote on a piece of paper:
I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER!!!
He put the paper on his forehead and waited for a response. The patient said nothing about it and instead talked about his week.
Halfway through the session, the psychiatrist could stand it no longer and the patient, “Did you happen to notice this sign on my forehead?”
The patient replied, “Yeah. That’s just like something my mother would do!”
The patient’s perception of the psychiatrist was colored by a very significant relationship in his past. This is called transference. It happens in virtually all significant relationships that are reminiscent of the past. It has to do with the transfer of feelings and attitudes from a person in the past to people in the present.
If it is pleasurable (such as when falling in love), we call it positive transference. If it is painful (such as when we feel rejected without good reason), we call it negative transference. In either case, it is as though we have been visited by a ghost from the past.
Transference can damage relationships by removing them from the reality of the present. When we love a person beyond what is realistic, we can miss out on danger signs that would otherwise foretell future problems. When we feel unrealistically uncomfortable in a relationship, we may end that relationship prematurely and miss out on a solid friendship.
Transference is also the basis of racial, religious, gender, and cultural prejudice. But that’s another article, if not a book.
Transference can be hard to see unless we look for it. Recognizing it involves admitting that you might be over-reacting. An over-reaction is based on present feelings combined with past feelings. If you are over-reacting, you must be
experiencing feelings from the past since you cannot feel about the future except as a projection of the past (what we anticipate is based on past experience), and since if you were experiencing only present feelings you would be reacting, not
over-reacting.
Looking to seek clarity in your relationships and emotional well-being? I’ve written a book with the help of my experiences as a forensic psychiatrist and mental health professional, sharing strategies to identify and address transference dynamics that may be hindering your personal growth and happiness.
Over-reactions provide an opportunity to learn about ourselves and how the past is influencing the present. Seize the opportunity to learn instead of tossing it aside as “just an over-reaction”.
When you identify the elements from the past that continue to influence you and let go, the ghosts go with them and your relationships in the present, including your relationship with yourself, become healthier and more fulfilling.
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Most people who came to see me when I was still practicing as a forensic psychiatrist were stuck in maladaptive patterns, unhealthy relationships, depressed moods, storms of anxiety, unproductive ways of thinking, poor decision-making, and other states of ill health. They often felt frustrated, demoralized, helpless, and ashamed. Most people who came to see me were looking for ways to become unstuck.
Are you feeling stuck in patterns that hinder your progress?
Take the first step towards overcoming obstacles and reclaiming your path with insights from my book. As a mental health therapist, I encourage you to explore practical strategies to move forward and achieve emotional freedom.
Here is what I told them. Because you are stuck does not meant that you are inadequate. It does not mean either that you are doomed. It means that you are temporarily blocked by one obstacle or another that is interfering with your ability to move forward. To become unstuck requires that you take steps to free yourself. I recommend that you:
Feeling overwhelmed by challenges in relationships or personal growth? Discover actionable advice tailored by a behavioral health therapist in my book. Dive into proven techniques to navigate high conflict situations and empower yourself to break free from stagnation.
Feeling overwhelmed by challenges in relationships or personal growth? Get advice tailored by me as a behavioral health therapist in my book. Read proven techniques to navigate high conflict situations and motivate yourself to break free from stagnation.
Once you have taken a good look at what is getting in your way, you need to develop a plan of attack. The obstacle is not likely to remove itself.
Not all obstacles can be maneuvered easily, especially those that are complex and reinforced by others. If you have examined the obstacle and failed to get past it, you may be dealing with an obstacle that you cannot get beyond without help. You may need special knowledge to overcome it. In that case, you would do well to:
Are you ready to break free from emotional barriers and prosper? As a mental health provider, I invite you to explore my book's comprehensive guidance on overcoming obstacles. Prepare yourself with the right knowledge to enhance resilience and seek expert help when needed to navigate life's toughest challenges effectively
Even the strongest among us is unable to get unstuck without seeing an expert. Yes, I’m talking about seeing a therapist. They will not look down on you because you run into an obstacle. They know that overcoming obstacles requires help. After all, they are people, too.
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Explore how these truisms shape our lives. As a psychiatric therapist and mental health expert, I offer insights in my book that reveal the complexities of human emotions and behaviors.
The root of (almost) all conflict is an attack on self-esteem.
Over-reaction is one’s emotional reaction to the present coupled with unresolved
emotions from the past.
Greed is the result of overdetermined need.
Shame is based on a feeling of inadequacy.
Anger is most often based on the perception of unfairness.
Trauma is the result of exposure to an overwhelmingly frightening emotional,
physical, and/or spiritual event.
One’s conscience develops early in life except for the four per cent of us who don’t have one.
Empathy heals, builds bonds, allows for normal development, and is necessary for peace of mind.
Anxiety and fear are largely responsible for the divisiveness of tribes.
Unresolved wishes from the past greatly influence present behavior, thought,
relationships, and decisions.
Fantasies and dreams are windows into the soul and one’s emotional make-up.
Separation is a repetitive, life-long process.
Imbalance leads to illness and the destruction of relationships.
A certain amount of deprivation is necessary for healthy development.
Grieving is a healing process.
Nothing lasts forever including the illusion of eternity.
Reality exists but looks different to each of us.
Change is life’s one constant.
The meaning of life is simply the meaning we give it.
Feelings can be rationalized but aren’t rational.
Are you ready to understand the roots of conflict, anxiety, and more? Read my recently released book, “Traveling from Birth to the End of the Trail.” I’m a psychiatric counselor and experienced mental health expert, given you deep insights in my book to help you navigate life's challenges with clarity and empathy.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be rich? So rich that you’d neer have to worry about money again? You could buy whatever you want, go anywhere you want, do whatever you want. No worries, no constraints, nothing to get in the way of finally being free of responsibility. All you needs met, your wishes, your whims. No more frustration, no more disappointment. It’d be Heaven, pure Heaven.
What a great fantasy, one we commonly have when we think of the wealthy. We believe they have it made. We hold them in awe and envy their lifestyle and money. We think about their ability to sleep in every morning, have breakfast on the veranda of their multi-million dollar homes, and spend their days in luxurious settings. We wish that we could have what they have. We wish that we could be rich, too.
Because we doubt that we will ever be rich, we see them as greedy and unwilling to share. We believe that they have become wealthy by hook and by crook. We believe that taxing them more will ease our financial burden and bring balance to the culture. But we also believe that the wealthy are in power and will never relinquish their wealth. If only they weren’t so greedy.
Explore the complexities of greed and its roots in unmet emotional needs. As a psychiatric counselor and mental health expert, I have described the psychology behind human behavior in my insightful book.
What we don’t understand is why some wealthy people (not all) are greedy. We don’t understand the reason they have pursued more wealth than they could ever use. We don’t see that many wealthy people are actually deprived.
Deprived? You heard me right. Greedy people have generally been deprived. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Well let’s take a look.
Self-made men and women have moved from rags to riches on their own. They are usually (but not always) entrepreneurs with successful companies, many of which have been sold to make room for the next good idea. They enjoy the rush associated with living on the edge and making big deals.
The self-made have been willing to sacrifice a great deal to succeed in business. They deprive themselves of time to relax, be with their families, and maintain good health. They tend to numb themselves to the wear and tear a fast pace generates and avoid feeling, sometimes with the help of substances that block sensations associated with stress and fatigue such as alcohol (an anesthetic), nicotine (a powerful stimulant) and caffeine (a potent energizer).
Self-made men and women thrive on the effects of high adrenaline levels. They are competitive and often very self-centered. They tend to use people and situations to feel gratified without concern for fairness or the impact of their actions on the well-being of others. The self-made tend to value status, power, and money above all else, and generally never feel that they have enough of any of them.
The reason that many self-made men and women have difficulty feeling satisfied is that they use status, power, and material goods to fill an internal void resulting from emotional deprivation when they were children. The emotional deprivation most often stems from a lack of accurate empathy and consistent need-meeting when they are children coupled with the self-imposed emotional deprivation stemming from a current lifestyle that precludes having their emotional needs met.
A second category of the ultrarich is their children who are known as trust-funders. They generally have distant relationships with their parents who have been too busy making money (as is usually the case with their fathers) and taking care of the accoutrements of having money such as the social calendar and charity work (as is usually the case with their mothers). Trust-funders are usually raised by nannies, most of whom are good at their jobs, but none of whom are their parents.
Self-made men and women attempt to satisfy their children’s emotional needs using the same means they use to meet their own. They provide materially in excess of what their children need, tend to set few limits, and given satisfaction substitutes in the form of unique experiences and a high standard of living. They make their children feel special by providing special environments and encouraging them to identify with a privileged class who are “superior” by virtue of their social positions and bank balances.
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Since self-made parents tend to view the world as full of predators, trust-funders are often given special protection in the bodyguards and/or special schools set apart from the dangerous “riff-raff” with whom the children might come into contact. This makes the children feel special but also fearful and untrusting of the outside world.
Trust-funders are often not taught to work even though their fathers and sometimes mothers work most of their waking hours. They are the recipients of the bounty and are seen by the parents as extensions of themselves and the family lineage.
Trust-funders often have trouble functioning independently outside the stockade of affluence. Their relationships tend to be shallow because of the prohibition against intimate involvement with outsiders and their parents’ message that relationships need not be based on meeting mutual emotional needs.
Unfortunately, self-made parents have difficulty empathizing accurately with others and frequently miss the mark when trying to meet their children’s emotional needs. This leaves a hunger inside trust-funders that can propel them into self-indulgence.
Trust-funders, like their parents, are left feeling empty inside, an emptiness they try to fill with status, power, and money as adults. They are ill-equipped to stand on their own two feet and develop relationships that are co-dependent and unfulfilling. They tend to be narcissistic, somewhat arrogant, and entitled.
I have used the ultrarich to make a point, namely that greed is the result of unmet emotional needs during childhood. It is “overdetermined” meaning that needs of the past combine with needs in the present. Greedy people try to fill their emptiness with material goods. This, of course, doesn’t work.
Greed is not exclusive to the ultrarich. It can be found in all socioeconomic groups. The same dynamic applies whether one is rich or poor. It manifests differently when a person doesn’t have the material wherewithal that the rich have. It may show itself as relationships that are out of balance, addictions, thievery, hypersexuality, overzealous religious practices, and other ways that allow a person to avoid feeling the emptiness.
Curious about how childhood experiences shape our adult behaviors, including greed? Read my book, where I, along with other mental health clinicians, explore the emotional landscapes that influence relationships and decisions.
Contrary to the famous movie quote, greed is not good. Emptiness is not a good feeling. Having to continually focus on filling a void is not a good way to live. There are better ways to rid oneself of the emptiness, but that’s another article.
We have all experienced rapid change as of late on global, national, professional, and/or personal levels. We experience change constantly, sometimes in ways that are blatantly obvious and sometimes in ways that are hard to see. To navigate change successfully, it is important to understand that process and how to manage it.
Change is a transformational process that results in a modification of the status quo on multiple levels simultaneously. Such levels can be subatomic, atomic, molecular, individual, and/or relational. Change occurs within groups, cities, states, countries, the earth’s atmosphere, and the universe. Change on one level impacts other levels to which it is connected.
Change is ubiquitous, omni-present, and often powerful. It has a life of its own but can be directed. It is sometimes intentional and sometimes spontaneous. It occurs inside of us and around us. It is usually the result of forces coming together simultaneously. For example, climate change occurs because of the combined forces of nature and man. When not managed well, change can be chaotic and turbulent. But when managed well, it can occur smoothly and take us in a positive direction.
As a mental health provider and psychiatric therapist, I invite you to read the deep impacts of change on our lives through my latest book. Gain insights into managing transitions effectively and understanding the emotional landscapes that influence our responses.
Change is a process that occurs naturally in living things. It is part of a life force that moves us forward, sideways, or backwards as we travel along our individual paths. The greater our understanding of the process of change, the better we can direct it. Some change is good and some bad. It is usually both. How we label change is largely dependent on how it makes us feel and how well it meets our needs. Good change makes us feel happy, content, and satisfied. Bad change produces unhappiness, discontent, and dissatisfaction.
When we evaluate change it has a major effect on our judgment. Sometimes good change only looks good and sometimes bad change only looks bad. For example, taking a job that pays well, is located near our home, and provides a path for advancement looks good until we learn in time that it is boring, puts us in an office we share with disagreeable people, and requires us to work weekends, taking away from important family time.
Our typical response to change is to resist it. But why resist good change? It is often because the outcome of change is frequently unknown. We like stability and predictably. They make us feel safe. Change takes us to a transitional zone of anxiety that makes us feel uncomfortable and insecure. We resist feeling anxious which we manage by doing our best to slow the process, avoid it altogether, or move in reverse, traveling back in time to territory with which we are familiar.
On a personal level, we may gravitate toward old patterns of behavior and relationships because we are familiar with them. We forget the reasons that we changed our life circumstances to get where we are such as the pain and frustration we experienced at the time. We convince ourselves that it will be different this time even though we have no evidence to support that belief.
Daniel and Mary were married for 22 years. The last five were very difficult because of changes they made individually. Daniel became interested in collecting Indian artifacts which consumed a considerable portion of their assets and reset the decorative tone of their home.
This upset Mary greatly. She had no interest in Daniel’s expensive hobby and bemoaned no longer having the funds needed to travel. She resented his making purchases without consulting her and his replacing decorative pieces she valued with artifacts that she detested.
Are you struggling to navigate change in your life? As a psychiatric counselor and mental health expert, I’ve written practical strategies and insights into accepting change positively. Discover how to overcome fear and resistance, and turn transitions into opportunities for growth and fulfillment.
Mary, who had been a homebody, had become obsessed with travel. She couldn’t get enough. Daniel remained a homebody and resented Mary’s taking frequent trips with her girlfriends. He complained that she was wasting money, viewing her travels as frivolous and unnecessary.
Daniel and Mary argued frequently which they hadn’t done to a significant degree before. Their relationship changed dramatically because of the changes they’d made individually. The pain and frustration became increasingly intense with no end in sight.
Unable to accept the changes each made, Daniel and Mary concluded that the only option they had was to divorce. They believed that they would be able to find peace and happiness by changing their life circumstance.
Mary accomplished that goal, but Daniel didn’t. She enjoyed taking even more trips with her girlfriends. She also felt peaceful with no one in her life with whom she was in nearly constant conflict.
Daniel, on the other hand, experienced a tremendous loss. Not only did he lose Mary, but he also lost the funds he needed to support his expensive hobby. He furthermore had to downsize his residence which meant that he no longer had room for the artifacts he had collected over the years and had to put most of them in storage.
The losses left Daniel with an emptiness he decided to fill with another relationship. He chose a woman who appeared to be like the “old Mary”. Hoping to take care of her own emptiness, Elaine lied to Daniel, telling him that she was a homebody with a large house who was done traveling.
Daniel impulsively moved in with Elaine after two months believing that she was the answer to his prayers. When he spoke with her about moving in his artifacts, she asked him to wait a few more months. She also informed him that although she had said that she no longer wished to travel, she had committed to several trips with girlfriends, promising that that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.
Daniel had not handled the changes associated with losing his marriage well. He didn’t allow himself to grieve and he tried to fill his emptiness by replacing Mary with a woman he saw as the “old Mary”.
Daniel and Elaine argued much as he had argued with Mary. Unwilling to tolerate the conflict, she asked him to leave which put him in the same empty spot he’d tried to escape. This time, however, Daniel looked at his inability to manage change successfully. He decided to see a therapist.
The therapist helped Daniel look at his resistance to change. He looked at changes in his life, focusing on the fact that his family had moved every year or two during his entire childhood. His father was in the Army and had been reassigned on a frequent basis, moving the family from base to base and country to country.
Daniel suffered loss after loss as a result of the frequent moves. With each move, he lost friends and social status. He lost his home, his sports teams, his piano teacher, stability, and emotional security.
When Daniel graduated high school and left home, he promised himself that he would never move again. He went to college in his last hometown, obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, and remained in that city for the remainder of his adult life.
With the help of his therapist, Daniel came to see that his avoidance of change had been deeply ingrained during his childhood and was largely responsible for his inability to accept changes that occurred in his marriage. He saw that he was unable to enjoy traveling with Mary because of his having moved around so much when he was a boy. He had collected stamps and coins then which he took with him when the family moved. They served as his “teddy bear”, providing him a sense of continuity. Collecting Indian artifacts as an adult had given him a sense of stability much as he had had when he collected stamps and coins.
Daniel also came to see that his avoidance of change had led him into a premature relationship with Elaine. In his mind, she was the “old Mary”. He hadn’t given himself enough time in the transitional zone of fear and anxiety needed to overcome those feelings and see who she really was.
Fear and anxiety are the most potent obstacles to change. We build systems of belief to manage them. People from other cultures are perceived as threats. So are people who don’t look, behave, and think like us. We believe we are in danger when major cultural shifts occur even when they are positive.
Change also involves loss. We must give up old ways of thinking and being when changes occur. Loss requires grieving. The greater the change, the greater the loss. No one enjoys those feelings. We try to keep them out of our consciousness by avoiding them. We remain stuck in the past.
Understand the depths of change in my book, where I, along with other mental health clinicians’ expertise, explore the intricate dynamics of adaptation and transformation. Learn to tackle the power of change to enhance your relationships, career, and personal well-being.
Change also involves the potential for gains. We gain new, more adaptive ways of thinking. We gain forward movement along our individual and cultural paths. We gain opportunities that we would not otherwise have had. When we manage change well, our relationships improve. Our socioeconomic level may be enhanced. And the country in which we live may become stronger and less fraught with conflict.
Finally, I would like to offer tips on how to manage conflict:
To come full circle, change is inevitable, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. The better that you are equipped to manage change, the more you will gain from the it. Embrace positive change. Don’t be automatically afraid of it. It is part of everyone’s life from birth to the end of the trail.
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Divorce after divorce, year after year, professionals bow and pay homage to a principle with which everyone agrees. Divorce should be conducted in the best interests of children. Their feelings and needs should come first.
We place this principle in our laws. It is supposed to be the cornerstone of all decisions afecting our progeny. It is the ruler by which all judgments are to be measured. We glorify it and repeat it to each other, family and friends, the courts, and ourselves. Everyone believes in making decisions based on the best interests of the children. That's what we say.
I performed custody evaluations for over 35 years. I saw the pain, fear, confusion, and trauma of families torn apart. As a child advocate, I was particularly aware of the impact of parental divorce on children who felt helpless to keep the family together even though they tried. They universally wished that their parents would stop fighting and reunite, a wish that rarely came true.
The children who sufered most were those whose parents exposed them to intense conflict. They saw their parents yell at each other, treat each other with disrespect and hatred, and sometimes hit each other. They were too often caught in the middle of these disputes and treated like pawns in a destructive game of chess. They observed mom and dad struggling over money, property, privileges, the “truth”, and their custody.
Children typically withdrew into themselves. They sufered emotionally, developmentally, and relationally. Their school performance sufered; they became depressed; they developed anxiety and sometimes post traumatic symptoms; and some acted out in self-destructive ways.
As a forensic psychiatrist who has witnessed the toll of high conflict divorces on children, I urge parents and mental health professionals alike to prioritize children's well-being.
To children their parents’ fights were very personal. Kids incorporate each of their parents. Each parent becomes part of them. When one parent attacks the other, the child feels attacked. If dad hates mom, he hates that part of them. When mom hates dad, the same feeling state is activated. As a result, children lose self-esteem and feel unloved.
Good parents protect their children from damage. Parents who are self-centered focus on winning the war and are too often unaware of the harm their behavior causes. This lack of awareness adds to the children feeling unsafe and uncared about. These children protect themselves by withdrawing even more.
Fortunately, most children are resilient and don’t end up with life-long problems when exposed to parental conflict, but about 25 per cent do. Children less fortunate continue to be caught in the middle even after the divorce has been finalized. They carry the trauma into adulthood, have dificulty establishing healthy relationships with members of the opposite sex, and often avoid romantic relationships altogether. They also distance themselves from their parents who may or may not realize what they’ve done.
Parents are responsible for keeping their children safe during all war, including divorce. Please keep this in mind if you are headed for a divorce, are involved in a divorce, or have finalized a divorce. Be empathic, support their needs, and keep them out of the middle. Your children will thank you.
As a mental health therapist with decades of experience, I’m on a journey to understand and mitigate the impacts of high conflict divorces on children. With my blogs, get practical insights and compassionate guidance to navigate this challenging terrain with empathy and wisdom.
Getting divorced? Tired of fighting? Want to find another way? Perhaps understanding what drives conflict would help to de-escalate it, or at least keep it from getting worse. Here’s the answer most of the time: self-esteem.
Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves based primarily on our individual abilities to master developmental steps as they present themselves during our individual life spans. It is mastery that makes us feel good about ourselves from the inside out. It is mastery that allows us to feel good about ourselves even when we are not fed good feelings by other people. It is mastery that gives us the kind of self-esteem that allows us to endure dificult times even when we feel that we have failed. And it is mastery that gives us the self-confidence that we need to admit our mistakes and learn from experience.
But there is another source of self-esteem, namely the good feelings about oneself that derives from the praise given by others. This source of self-esteem is particularly important to children who readily observe that they have a lot to master compared to people older than themselves. But it is also important to adults.
As a mental health provider, I've seen how self-esteem impacts divorces. Learn the strategies through my articles to navigate divorce without escalating conflict. You must learn to prioritize respect and mature communication to protect your self-esteem and foster a healthier post-divorce relationship.
Most people enter marriage believing that they as a couple will have a better life together than they would have had when single, sometimes a much better life. In part this is based on an idealized view of marriage and a belief in the automatic happiness that it will bring. And in part it is based on an idealized view of one’s prospective spouse. Too often the glow around the being of the person we plan to marry is based more on our wishes and needs than on who the person really is. But all honeymoons end and when they do most of the glow evaporates leaving the real person in the light.
When the glow goes away, we begin to see warts that were previously invisible. The more real the other person becomes, the less we idealize them. In healthy marriages, those based on reality and not on wishes, the warts are seen as simply another part of the person we love. In marriages that lead to divorce, however, the warts appear cancerous and repugnant even when they are not.
How a person manages his or her feelings about the warts usually determines the level of conflict that couples experience when they divorce. The choice is to either poke them or not poke them, to aggravate them or not aggravate them, to treat them with respect or disrespect, to make an issue out of them in a way that makes the other person feel bad or to handle them in a more neutral fashion.
Jack and Jill are getting a divorce. They have simply fallen down the hill too many times. Jack blames Jill for tripping and pulling him with her. Jill blames Jack for bumping her on the hillside and not holding firm when she tried to catch herself from falling. Neither wants to take responsibility for his or her contribution to the fall.
As a psychiatric therapist, in exploring the root of divorce, conflict is self-esteem. Get practical insights and guidance to mitigate damage during divorce proceedings. You should learn to uphold dignity, manage emotions, and pave the way for a smoother transition into single life.
Jack doesn’t want to take responsibility because he has always been expected to be strong and keep his family safe. He doesn’t want to be seen by his peers as less than a man and so blames Jill.
Jill, on the other hand, does not want to appear dependent and weak. She blames Jack and casts herself as a victim to protect her self-esteem. Besides, she knows that she has never been able to count on him, not really. To her way of thinking, this is yet another example of why they should divorce. She decides to punish Jack for his carelessness and irresponsibility, and decides to make him pay. She launches an assault in court to show the judge that she is faultless and that she has good reason to get rid of Jack.
Jack, feeling hurt and insulted, refuses to acknowledge his part in the fall. He is not going to put up with Jill’s making false allegations about his competence and makes sure everyone knows the truth, including the judge. He brings in character witness after character witness to prove that he is a good man in an efort to repair the damage to his self-esteem.
Jack and Jill have finally shown each other who they are. They are angered and repulsed by the other’s behavior and develop a strategy to defeat the other person’s agenda. Part of the strategy is to show the world what a pathetic human being the other is. The fight is on. If it goes too far, there will no turning back.
The conflict between Jack and Jill is not about the children or the assets, but about their sense of worth and value. They have reached this point as a result of damage done to the way they felt about themselves during the marriage. They feel disappointed and disillusioned as a result of the other’s behavior. They also feel ashamed that they have been unable to hold their marriage together.
The more that self-esteem is based on something other than reality, the more likely it is that a person will experience narcissistic injury, i.e. a wound to one’s
self-esteem.. The deeper the wound, the more likely it is that that person will strike out to feel better about him or herself. The more that spouses strike out at each other, the more likely it is that conflict will develop. The more often one person attacks the self-esteem of the other person, the more likely it is that the conflict will become chronic, a pattern of interaction that can be dificult to change, particularly if the wounds are deep.
By the end of too many marriages, spouses have called each other names and belittled each other out of frustration, anger, and disappointment. Both partners carry unhealed or partially healed wounds that are painful and make each person more vulnerable to criticism. A small level of conflict becomes a bigger level of conflict which can spiral out of control and result in a malignant tearing apart of whatever feelings of love, trust, and cooperation that might remain.
Divorce is an experience that makes most people feel bad about themselves. For most people it is a sign of failure and inadequacy. When a person is left, it is common for that person to wonder why the person who previously cared about and admired them has come to conclusion that they are no longer desirable or finds them so repugnant that they can no longer stand to live under the same roof.
Even the leaving spouse sufers a blow to self-esteem. Divorce is the opposite of mastery, at least in the eyes of the people who are divorcing. Most people (narcissists aside) are left with the feeling that they have messed up again, especially as their chain of failed relationships lengthens.
When there is a high degree of conflict in a divorce, it is almost always a result of narcissistic injury, usually to both people. The adversarial nature of the legal system used to help people move from marriage to being single may add to the intensity of the conflict especially when one or both people misuse the legal process as a club, a way to ventilate anger and regain self-esteem at the same time. The more contentious the divorce, the more likely it is that damage will be done to one or both people, which often fuels conflict after the divorce.
When faced with the prospect of a divorce, you have a choice to make, i.e. whether to use the experience to exact yet another pound of flesh or to move beyond the current state of afairs to a better place, including a better relationship with your spouse. This is particularly important when there are children to consider.
But how can unnecessary conflict be avoided? What does it take to prevent a state of chronic conflict? How do two people move from hating each other to feeling neutral about and no longer troubled by the past, including their past relationship? The answer is easy even though making it happen is dificult.
When the conflict between two people is based on injury to self-esteem, the first step is to stop the bleeding by refraining from causing damage to the other person’s self-esteem and restoring one’s own in a manner that does not fan the fires that burn. That means not attacking the other person’s self-esteem, not calling that person names, not insulting him or her, and not making the other person feel small. It means being respectful, managing one’s emotions in a mature manner, giving credit where credit is due, and apologizing for hurt unjustly inflicted. It means being fair, honest, and considerate, and thinking before speaking.
It also means managing the process of divorce appropriately, learning from one’s mistakes, taking responsibility for one’s part in the demise of the marriage, and adjusting to being single again in a manner that promotes growth and allows
healing to take place. It means coming out on the other side of the divorce process with self-respect and the feeling that one has done it well.
Discover from the help of mental health experts how self-esteem drives divorce conflicts. Explore the strategies to heal and move forward respectfully. Whether you're divorcing or supporting someone through it, learn to preserve self-worth and foster a constructive post-divorce relationship for the sake of all involved.
Self-esteem that lasts is based on mastery. An imbalance in self-esteem on the part of people involved in divorce leads to conflict that may perpetuate the imbalance.
It is mastering the end of a marriage that promotes a healthy self-esteem in both people and minimizes the odds that conflict will continue beyond the divorce. Do it for yourself. And if you have children, please do it for them.
The process of legal divorce is frequently complicated by the fact that participants, including the parties and their attorneys, often enter the process with conflicting agendas motivated primarily by self interest. Alliances form between attorneys and clients to further the agenda of the client. They work to this end using an adversarial process which too often pits one family member against the other, frequently to the detriment of the family as a whole.
As a forensic psychiatrist, I've witnessed the impact of high conflict divorces on families. My book and articles ofer practical strategies supported by mental health professionals for establishing common goals that prioritize children's well-being. Learn to navigate divorce with maturity and compassion to build a healthier family dynamic post-separation.
Establishing common goals for the divorce which is adopted by all participants usually lessens the turbulent nature of the adversarial process used to resolve disputes. The adoption of a list of common goals should be accomplished when the legal process is first initiated. The list of common goals should then be used as a means of keeping everyone on track and diminishing conflict as the legal divorce unfolds. This list should include the following:
Meeting these goals takes work, patience, maturity, and emotional strength. It means putting one’s own needs second to the children’s. And it means thinking before acting. Although adhering to these goals can be very dificult at times, your children will thank you later.
Learn the proven strategies from me, as I’m a behavioral health therapist to foster a constructive divorce process. Understand common goals that protect children, preserve family relationships, and promote healing. Whether you're going through a divorce or supporting loved ones through it, my book ofers guidance for a more harmonious post-divorce future.
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