About Relationships

Grief, mental illness and psychiatry’s sad refrain

 
Grief, mental illness and psychiatry’s sad refrain

Scientific American covers a coming shake-up in how grief is defined in relation to mental illness as the forthcoming DSM-5 diagnostic manual aims to radically redefine how mourning is treated by mental health professionals. It’s worth saying that the DSM-5 has yet to be finalised and will not appear until 2013 but the changes to [...] … proposal to classify happiness as a mental disorder due to the fact that it is “statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system

"I Love You, But….."

 
"I Love You, But....."

It’s not unusual for two people to disagree with each other. In a committed relationship the presence of occasional conflict is inevitable, although the way couples deal with this issue varies widely.

Sometimes one person may find it necessary to … Since it can be easy for a person under stress to perceive disagreement with a topic as a rejection of his or her basic worth, the overt statement of affection can be a stabilizing factor in a high-stress situation.
can be helpful in a wide variety of situation. “I love you, but I’m angry at you right now”; “I love, you but I really disagree with you”; even “I love you, but I can’t …

Communicating About Communication

 

…many people did not grow up in a family that modeled good communication skills. One or both parents may have been emotionally withholding, excessively critical, or loudly argumentative; they may have frequently given confusing or contradictory mixed messages; maybe there was little meaningful conversation at all. Verbally abusive styles of communication are unfortunately present in some families, including easily recognizable forms such as threatening, blaming and name-calling as well as many of the more subtle types such as discounting, diverting, undermining and countering, all of which can continue through to the next generation.

Apology vs. Empathy

 
Apology vs. Empathy

I’ve previously written at length about the art of apologizing, since a full apology is much more than saying “I’m sorry”. Today I want to highlight one point which I think gets overlooked a lot when a person tries to express a recognition for wrong-…

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