Why Lashing Out Backfires–Even When You Are Right
Last post told Caroline’s story. She was falsely accused, attacked, actually, and awakened in the middle of the night for “discussions” until she finally lost it. I contended that under such circumstances, her behavior was not at all crazy, but normal. "Thank you, so...
Normal Reactions To False Accusations
This poor woman sat in my office weeping; she thought she was going crazy. We’ll call her Caroline. Here’s what happened: Her husband, we’ll call him Phil, decided that she was having an affair. She insisted she wasn’t, but he refused to believe her. Attacking a...
Verbal Abuse Scale From 8 to 10
Part 3 of the Scale of Verbal Abuse (the worst) https://youtu.be/XRxb0_Jbg5E
Verbal Abuse Scale From 8 to 10
This is Part III of the Verbal Abuse Scale 8 – “You S.O.B” This is overt name-calling. There’s no other label to pin on it but verbal abuse. And there is never any excuse for it no matter how frustrated you are and no matter how badly abused you have been by the...
Verbal Abuse Scale From 4 to 6
Part 2 of the Verbal Abuse Scale (middle) https://youtu.be/Axk6yHoe1wA
Verbal Abuse Scale From 4 to 7
Part II of the Verbal Abuse Scale 4 – “What you accused me of is dumb.” This is much worse than #1 because it is an overt statement, not implicit, but explicit that the person you’re speaking to is dumb. Don’t use pejorative language on your loved ones! Although you...
Verbal Abuse Scale From 1 to 3 (Out of 10)
On a 10 point scale of increasing verbal abuse, here are numbers 1-3. The same examples are covered here as in the written post. https://youtu.be/VUOTIQ7vpv8
Verbal Abuse Scale From 1-3 (Out of 10)
There was a humorous article in the newspaper about how a person manages to secure table reservations at restaurants when the hostess has been telling other people that there will be nothing available for three weeks. The gentleman in question says, “I want a...
How Your Relationships Affect Who You Are
You thought you had an identity. Actually, you have many of them. This is not my original idea. The idea was first proposed by Kenneth Gergen 20 years ago in a book he wrote called The Saturated Self. I just came across some thoughts I had on it which I want to share...
Are You Codependent or Connected to Each Other?
Is it normal for one person’s happiness to be dependent on another person? Isn’t that co-dependent? In my last two blog posts I addressed codependency. I explained that a key to understanding co-dependency is that while one person does something destructive, the other...