Sublime

If you prefer, seek a therapist who knows how to deal with secrets. This will be a person of mercy, with no particular drum to bang about right and wrong, who knows the difference between guilt and remorse and about the nature of grieving and resurrection of spirit.

regularly enjoying each other’s company and working hard to maintain mutual compassion and respect for each other, getting to know each other in the finest detail, finding ways to express appreciation and care in everyday life.

Both Alan and his wife Marie believe Alan’s conscious decision to connect with men saved their marriage. Alan had made his wife his emotional center. His life revolved around trying to please her and make her happy. Due to his ineffective covert contracts, Alan never believed Marie gave as much to him as he gave to her. As a result, he was often

Be honest with yourself while also offering unconditional love and support.

Ideally, if our caretakers are present, attuned to us, and lovingly meet our needs, we learn that dependency on others is safe.

Sullivan believed that our struggles were interactional (meaning “relational”). He went so far as to say, “It’s the mark of a senior clinician that he or she is the same person in their living room that they are in their office.” We can’t teach patients to be relational if we aren’t relational with them.

What emerges time and again are portraits of people who desperately crave love and want to keep their relationships intact at any cost, but their fear sabotages any attempt at intimacy and is causing their relationships to fail. They struggle to engage with hobbies because they never believe their work is of any worth.

Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. The emphasis on differentiation that is held by most of today’s popular psychology approaches

She has complained about these behaviors for years and Alan admits to every fault she finds, promising to behave differently.