A Look at Attachment Think back to some of your earliest memories with your mom, dad, or other caregiver. Did you feel safe, connected, and loved unconditionally? Perhaps you felt that love was given conditionally, or even withheld from you intentionally. If you were raised in a household where addiction or abusive behaviors were present, […]
Triangulation: Playing One Person Against Another
Triangulation is a manipulation tactic where one person will not communicate directly with another person, instead using a third person to relay communication to the second, thus forming a triangle. It is also a form of splitting in which one person manipulates a relationship between two parties by controlling communication between them. Triangulation may manifest […]
Adult Children Of Alcoholics-Breaking free from the control of the past
Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs) are intimately familiar with feeling powerless, out of control, and terrified. As children raised by an alcoholic parent or primary caregiver, ACOAs were innocent hostages in a world filled with unpredictability, chaos, confusing roles, illogical thinking, and intense fear. They struggled to navigate a game that was always changing by […]
Forgiveness – dropping the emotional burden
What does forgiveness mean to you? Is it a word with religious overtones? Does it mean that you let someone who wronged you off the hook? People view forgiveness in many different ways, but at the heart of forgiveness is letting go of past emotional injuries in order to give yourself the gift of emotional […]
The Persistent Pain of Family Estrangement
This article was first published by Teri Apter PH.D and appeared in Psychology Today December 22nd, 2015. All credit given to the Author. Sometimes parenting an adult child is smooth and simple: The son or daughter who was hyper-critical of everything you did at 15, and who seemed charged with excess irritability by your very […]