Harriet Lerner
Harriet Lerner
Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist and a contributor to feminist theory and therapy. From 1972 to 2001 she was a staff psychologist at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas and a faculty member and supervisor in the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry. During this time she published extensively on the psychology of women and family relationships, revising traditional psychoanalytic concepts to reflect feminist and family systems perspectives. Her son is the National Book Award-nominated poet and novelist Ben Lerner...
distance law fundamentals
If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
bodies communication good honor love truly tune
And we will be in tune with our bodies only if we truly love and honor them. We can't be in good communication with the enemy.
war believe fighting
Request an apology when you believe you deserve one, but don't get in a tug of war about it. Instead, be a role model and tender a genuine apology yourself when an apology is due. Your willingness to apologize can be contagious and models maturity for your partner. Also, your non-apologizing partner may use a nonverbal way to reconnect after a fight, defuse the tension, or show you he's in a new place and wants to repair a disconnection. Accept the olive branch however it's offered.
self-esteem people feelings
Feeling essentially superior to other people is as sure a sign of poor self-esteem as feeling essentially inferior.
sex judging-people diagnosis
Judging people for whom they love (a same sex partner) rather than by whom they harm, should in itself merit a psychiatric diagnosis.
trying helpful sometimes
Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
family-and-friends our-relationship partners
You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends--and his.
kids important want
Kids want nothing more than for all the important adults in their life to get along.
children love-you imperfection
The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.
distance cat thinking
The rush of sexual attraction can act like a drug and blur our capacity for clear thinking. This can lead us to distance ourselves from our friends or even abandon our life plan for someone who couldn't otherwise be relied on to water our plants and feed our cat.
book experts emotion
No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
jobs children reflecting-back
Your children are not little mirrors reflecting back the good or bad job you've done.
two people want
The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.
buddhist morning believe
If you exchanged wedding vows, tape them to your bathroom mirror and read them aloud to yourself every morning along with the ritual brushing of teeth. It's not realistic to believe that you will live your promises as a daily practice -- unless you're a saint or a highly evolved Zen Buddhist. Not where marriage is concerned. But you can make a practice of returning to your vows when the going gets rough.