Good series of articles on Psychology Today

[TrentC]

I've found quite a few on that site, but here are some from a series of articles:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...amps-compassion

Using compassion to eliminate the vulnerabilities that anger and aggression protect us from seems radical and new only in this era of emotional pollution, in which we fail to see other people apart from our reactions to them. The emerging reactive narcissism -- the running theme of the current blog - is highly contagious and inevitably produces a sense of entitlement, victim identity, self righteousness, and the opposite of compassion: resentment and contempt.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...e-more-not-okay

Two subtly intertwined evils plague modern relationships. The first is emotional abuse of loved ones. The second is victim identity. They are intertwined because one causes the other.

Victim identity is identification with bad treatment you have suffered. It is focus on perceived damage at the hands of someone else or on personal weaknesses you feel were exploited by someone else. Damage and weakness become an integral part of your identity.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...tive-dissonance

Misinterpreting the message of cognitive dissonance ruins marriages, a fact that totally eludes marriage therapists and relationship authors who promote "getting your needs met."

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of self-image colliding with reality. Such collisions are inevitable, as self-image tends to be based on values - what is most important to you - while behavior is routinely directed at short-term comfort, pleasure, and utilitarian goals.

[TrentC]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...ealousy-complex

The recent post Mad about You distinguished two different kinds of jealousy. The simple variety occurs in all relationships. Absent chronic resentment, this minor form of jealousy motivates the partners to reconnect. The current post describes how to regulate complex jealousy, before it destroys your relationships and drives you crazy.

[TrentC]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...-do-you-want-be

Negative reactivity between partners is what keeps couples making the same mistakes over and over. That's when one cannot have a negative emotion without the other responding defensively. The principle holds even if the negative emotion is not expressed - one sulks, the other reacts.

[TrentC]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ange...-power-be-happy

Although this blog concerns the Age of Entitlement, I continue to be amazed when people protest about the "unfairness" of having to work to make their lives and relationships better. Unless you are lucky enough to have a personality predisposed to happiness, it does, indeed, take work to make yourself happy. The fact that you can work to make yourself happy is empowering; waiting vainly for someone else to do it for you is the ultimate in powerlessness.

[Young at Heart]

commenting, so I can more easily find the articles for reviewing again in the future.

thanks for the post

[Gardener]

Great stuff, Trent. Thanks!

[Bridgestone]

A lot of this stuff seems to be from Steven Stosny's Love without Hurt and his blog.

I agree.. good stuff. thanks for posting links.

[june72]

Trent you always find the best stuff!

[Lotus]

This one spoke to me. it is the second link the one about Victim Identity

Now the more intractable problem is dueling diagnoses. That's when each partner diagnoses the other with a personality disorder or some kind of addiction, brain disease, cognitive deficit, or childhood trauma that explains why he/she is such an idiot.

I see a lot of people on this website doing exactly what he describes.

Dueling diagnoses are always inaccurate and abusive because they are neither motivated by objective scientific inquiry nor by a compassionate desire to understand. Rather, they are motivated by a need to feel morally superior and to justify failure of compassion. Such self-righteousness in reaction to a partner's hurtful behavior is understandable, maybe even natural as a defense - it does give momentary relief of pain, anxiety, and depression. But the temporary relief of distress comes at a high price.