Read excerpts from Psychology Today below, and click to see full articles!
How Anger Rules Over Some Families
Dad has a temper. Everybody in the family knows that to keep a calm house; nobody can upset Dad. Mom frequently reminds the kids not to upset their father and hides potential sources of stress from him like a bad report card, a car dent, or a financial setback. The kids know how to read his moods from little details—like the pitch of his voice or how loudly the front door closes. When they sense their father’s stress increasing, the kids walk on eggshells, taking up as little space as possible.
What is a Cycle-Breaker?
There’s a term going around Instagram and TikTok that you won’t find in any psychology textbook but has nonetheless become pervasive. That term is “cycle-breaker.” A cycle-breaker is somebody who sees an unhealthy cycle of behavior in their family of origin (meaning the family they grew up in) and intentionally works to break that cycle.
6 Things Everyone Should Understand About Grief
Despite its prevalence, grief continues to be deeply misunderstood. It has become codified, rigid, and narrow. Instead of a broad, uncertain experience that is deeply individualized, mourners often internalize beliefs about how they should experience their own grieving process. The truth about grief is far gentler. Here are six tough but comforting truths about grief.
5 Signs That Friends Have Grown Apart
Friendships go through phases, ebbing and flowing over months and years. But sometimes, once important friendships start to fade. Here are five signs that you and a friend are truly growing apart.
Why Won’t My Adult Child Confide in Me?
In close, healthy relationships, adult children may confide in their parents when something goes wrong. When they choose not to reach out to their parents, a few reasons might be at play.
8 Ways Parents Sabotage Conversations with Adult Children
Unsolicited advice-giving. When an adult child approaches their parent with a problem, parents may immediately jump into solution mode and try to fix it. And while some adult children find that helpful, others find it premature, looking instead to feel understood and validated before, or instead of, solution-seeking.
4 Unexpected Sources of Grief
Grief is a far-reaching, ordinary experience that comes and goes as we move through life. The better we understand that, the better equipped we are to meet the challenges of allowing ourselves to grieve when we need to.
8 Destructive Beliefs About Friendship
Our messaging around friendship is one-dimensional. We often speak of friendships in platitudes like “best friends forever” and ignore the complexity of these important relationships. Out of this simplicy, myths have emerged. Here are eight myths about friendship that need to be debunked:
3 Ways to Respond to Dysfunctional Family Patterns
Grandma’s china isn’t the only thing that families pass down from generation to generation. Along with heirlooms and tchotchkes, families create and pass down emotional legacies. Grandparents and parents model to children how to treat others, how to behave in social situations, and how to build healthy relationships. And like heirlooms, some of these patterns deserved to be cherished and passed forward. Others? Not so much.
33 Stories People Tell Themselves About Their Feelings
Sitting with feelings is incredibly difficult. But sometimes, more painful than the feeling itself is the pain we cause ourselves by attaching difficult stories to those feelings. What kinds of stories do people tell themselves? Well, things like:
Why are People Passive Aggressive?
Few things are more frustrating for an open communicator than passive aggression. But where does it come from?
8 Ways That Friendships Fall Apart
Most friendships end. It is a painful truth and a universal reality. While some people go through only a few romantic breakups, most friendships come and go, ebb and flow. Here are some of the most common ways that friendships end.
How Parents and Adult Children Can Improve Their Relationship
The relationship between parents and adult children should reflect not only the bond of parent and child, but also everybody’s status as an adult. Some relationships between parents and adult children suffer because the parents and their children never stop to make sure the relationship has evolved to reflect their adulthood, instead relying on dynamics that solidified when the children were young. When that happens, goodwill erodes and everybody feels dissatisfied.
4 Reasons Why Somebody Might Reveal a Family Secret
Every family struggles. Many families have secrets, those parts of themselves that stay hidden from the outside world and sometimes, from one another. The stakes are often high. Why would somebody share a family secret? The research points to a few primary reasons.
Why High Achievers Can Struggle in Therapy
It is disorienting. You lose something, possibly something or somebody important, but the grief is not what you expect it to look like. It’s abbreviated. Truncated. Maybe you return to feeling “normal” relatively quickly. It feels like you should still be mourning. What’s going on?
18 Signs That You’re Dealing with a Passive Aggressive Person
At our core, we are meaning-makers. We live through and then interpret the events of our lives, bringing order to our experiences. When we endure pain and unhappiness, we find ways to frame and understand it and sometimes even find value in it. That process is integral to moving through and living with the experiences.
2 Types of Invisible Grief
When our biggest emotions come knocking — anger, sadness, grief, fear — it can be difficult to let them in. It may feel easier to ignore them, reject them, avoid them, or numb them than to face them, welcome them, and address them. But why is that? Why is it so difficult to accept difficult feelings? What happens to us when we come face to face with so much discomfort?
5 Reasons People Stay in Unhappy Friendships
Just like romantic relationships and family bonds, friendships grow and contract, evolve and stagnate. But for some, it’s extremely difficult to step away from a friendship, even if it becomes unhealthy, toxic, or just unsatisfying. But why? Why do we stay in friendships when they clearly stop working for us?
5 Emotions You Didn’t Know Were Part of Grief
Many people’s frame of reference for grief comes from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief. In her analysis, a grieving person will move through denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. And while all of these may be part of the grief experience, the simplified description of these phrases fails to chart the wide emotional range of experiences a grieving person may experience. Here are some other emotional experiences a grieving person may encounter.
6 Ways People Shut Down Difficult Conversations
Accepting feedback is one of the most difficult communication skills to master. It requires hearing how you hurt somebody else and learning the ways you will need to grow. But sometimes, the person receiving feedback finds ways to cut off or short-circuit the conversation in unhealthy ways. Let’s look at a few of the most common forms of conversation enders.