3 Essential Guidelines for Better Communication With Your Partner

Before that loving Valentine’s Day momentum fades away, think of this season as a great time to focus on effective communication with your partner. So regardless of what else is going on between the two of you, by keeping these essentials of good communication in mind, you can only make things better: Read more

4 Things to Consider When Taking a Risk in This New Year

You may have already begun taking the steps to see your New Year’s resolutions come to fruition. Perhaps you finally got around to joining that gym, or maybe you were able to confront a friend about something on your mind that’s difficult to talk about. Whatever new you may have initiated so far is a step toward change. And with change comes some degree of risk. Read more

Divorced or Separated With Kids? Here Are 3 Tips for Helping Them Through This Holiday Season

The holiday season seems to come upon us earlier and earlier each year. Even before Thanksgiving, I started to notice all of the signs — colorful lights strung in front of houses, a glimpse of lit trees through windows and cheerful holiday tunes on the radio. Along with the high spirits the holiday season, a package of stress often arrives. This is especially true for divorced couples that struggle over how to make plans that optimize the holidays for themselves and, of course, their children — who want nothing more than normality. Read more

Loneliness is Merely an Attitude You Can Abolish Today!

Nobody—whether single, in a long-term committed relationship or anything in between—is completely immune from that often-painful feeling of loneliness. That is, however, until you can see it for what it is: an attitude that’s completely within your power to change. Read more

Opposites Attract, But They May Not Last, Unless…

Most couples can name several ways in which they’re opposites: neatness versus sloppiness; extroversion versus introversion; being high-strung versus laid-back preferring city versus country living, etc. And I’m sure you have something in mind that’s specific to you. It’s true that quite often and in many respects, opposites attract. But those areas can either help you thrive as a couple or destroy you! Read more

When Your Relationship is Rocky, Look Right at Your Expectations

One of the best ways to think of a relationship on the rocks is to reflect on your expectations for your relationship. What are they? What is it that you really want from your partner? What could your partner do now that would — from your point of view — make the relationship work again? Make a comprehensive list, and pay special attention to what you now recognize your unique issues to be.
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Your Relationship is in Trouble: Has Your Partner Changed or Just Your View of Then Vs. Now?

The title of a great and popular old Off-Broadway play captures one of the most common sentiments I’ve seen when working with distressed couples: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.
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Navigating The Awkward Side of Parenting

Julia Sweeney’s excellent TED conversation “It’s Time For The Talk” is a very humorous account of a situation that practically all parents find themselves in at one time or another. And I’ve got to say that for the most part, she did pretty well with it!
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Your Best Mantra for the New Year

If you were to ask me what one thing the vast majority of the thousands of clients I’ve seen in my clinical psychology practice over the last 38 years have had in common, the answer might shock you. Almost without exception, what brings people to my office is what turns out to be a disconnect between the life they are living and the life they could be living if only they were empowered by their own choices.
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4 ‘Dangerous’ Yet Crucial Things Every Parent Should Encourage

I am a psychologist who works with adults, who are often very high achievers. So when I am asked if I see children in my practice, my routine tongue-in-cheek quip is, “only those in adult bodies.” More seriously, I’ve seen an extremely wide range of parenting results over my 38 years of clinical practice, ranging from outstanding to criminally horrific. Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but many parents either don’t realize or forget that the quality of the parenting we give our children is one of the crucial factors for determining how they will function throughout their entire lives.
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