Psychological boundaries are central to personal development and healthy functioning. Sometime the trouble we get into when relating to others involves “blurred, confused, or fused” limits when we, or others, violate the established boundaries. To be healthy, it is vital that we know how to maintain our own, and respect the personal boundaries of others.
[Read more…] about How to Gain Instant Success by Having No BoundariesCodependency
“Dry Drunk” Behaviors
Addiction of any type is a serious problem. However, effective treatment requires more than “just stopping” the use of drugs or alcohol. The reality is that when someone “just stops” their addiction, many of the behaviors that “got them into trouble” are “still active.” This “dry drunk” lifestyle is still addictive, even though they may have stopped drinking or using drugs. They are addicted to activities and avoiding real intimacy in their relationships by being unavailable to their partner and the family.
[Read more…] about “Dry Drunk” BehaviorsThe Danger of Enmeshed Families
Therapists have long been concerned with helping families develop healthy ways of caring and relating to one another. After all, it’s important that we care for others and are connected to them for healthy growth. However, there are certain types of “caring” that can interfere with healthy growth patterns for all members of the family.
[Read more…] about The Danger of Enmeshed FamiliesHow to Tell if You are a Victim of Verbal and Emotional Abuse
Abusers can be either male or a female. This article is therefore inclusive as the cycle of abuse is the same whether the abuser is a male or a female. These stages of the cycle of abuse are important to know about if you are going to manage your safety.
[Read more…] about How to Tell if You are a Victim of Verbal and Emotional AbuseGrowing Up with Emotional Abuse
When children’s development of self-esteem, social skills or capacity for intimacy is jeopardized by their parents’ behavior or neglect, they may be the victim of emotional abuse. Whether it is alcohol or other drugs, mental illness, compulsive behavior (eating, working, religion, etc.), or any one of a thousand other things that deplete a family’s emotional life, the results are the same.
[Read more…] about Growing Up with Emotional AbuseWait, I’m not Crazy?! Adults Who Grew Up in Dysfunctional Families
If you grew up in an unhealthy or dysfunctional family, it has drastically and permanently altered the course of your life. It is absolutely vital to understand how, specifically, this affects you so that you can stand a chance to change patterns of unhealthy choices and behaviors that plague you and your adult life. Left unchecked, these patterns can drastically sabotage everything you hold dear in this life.
[Read more…] about Wait, I’m not Crazy?! Adults Who Grew Up in Dysfunctional FamiliesHow Dysfunctional Families Cause “Thinking Errors”
Dysfunctional families promote very specific “thinking errors” that cause others difficulty in adapting to change and finding new ideas and directions. These errors in thinking cause a number of problems.
[Read more…] about How Dysfunctional Families Cause “Thinking Errors”Why Do People Who Come From Dysfunctional Families Have More Interpersonal Problems?
Dysfunctional families never admit their problems. The rules are simple: Don’t talk, think or feel. As a result, we feels insecure and can only depend on ourselves. In order to survive this lack of trust, we end up creating a rigid way of dealing with life. Yet when we go out into the real world, these dysfunctional rules for living end up blowing up in our face.
[Read more…] about Why Do People Who Come From Dysfunctional Families Have More Interpersonal Problems?The New Rules for Living without Dysfunction
Growing up with any type of neglect or abuse can warp our reality and affect our future in catastrophic ways. We’re left with some really unhealthy rules or patterns of how to live our lives, which actually cause us more problems than they solve. To escape this unending torture, we have to learn some new critical rules for living.
[Read more…] about The New Rules for Living without DysfunctionHow to Wake Up Every Morning and Spend Valuable Time Building Somebody Else’s Dream
Individuals that relate to the patterns of Adult Children tend to struggle with codependency. This is defined as a relationship where you do all the work and suffer all the consequences, yet the other person never grows, changes, or even notice all that you do. You don’t feel appreciated and you end up worn out, exhausted, and blamed.
[Read more…] about How to Wake Up Every Morning and Spend Valuable Time Building Somebody Else’s DreamEnabling Others: Encouraging Dysfunctional Behaviors
We usually “mean well” and want to be “helpful.” In fact, in many ways this helps us to work and solve problems together. However, there are times that the ways in which we help other people may actually cause more problems that we solve. This can happen even if we do it out of genuine love and concern. Understanding this concept is critical to our ability to develop healthy lives, friendships and families.
[Read more…] about Enabling Others: Encouraging Dysfunctional BehaviorsIf You Don’t Say What Your Needs Are, You Become Invisible
Many of us often wonder why our needs are never considered or why they are taken for granted. To fix this, we beg, plead, and try to do more, only to find that the more we do, the less we are noticed. The key to solving this puzzle is to learn a few simple concepts that can dramatically shift the balance of power and help to change the responses we receive from other people.
[Read more…] about If You Don’t Say What Your Needs Are, You Become InvisibleHow to Break Free From the Prison of the Past
It is hard for Adult Children to ask for professional help and therapy, even though this is the very thing that will help to free them from the “prison” of the past before they pass on their problems to the next generation. It is important to start to be aware of these potential traits so that one can start to “observe” themselves. The more one becomes aware of what they are doing, the better the chance that one can start to change, adjust, and “file down” some of these extreme ways of doing things.
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