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Showing posts from July, 2012

Why Some People Never Learn to Trust Others

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH Have you ever wondered why some people cannot seem to trust anyone?   Maybe you are married to someone who despite all of your positive efforts of encouragement still struggles with being able to trust you.   Maybe you have a friend who automatically distrusts everyone they come in contact with including supposed safe categories of people such as the police or a pastor.   Or maybe you have a child who mistrusts everything you say.   Regardless of any positive outcomes, they remain steadfast in mistrust. There are some concepts that psychology does really well and some that it tragically falls short but one that has stood the test of time is Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development.   The first stage from birth to eighteen months is Trust vs. Mistrust and it is the foundational stage upon which all future issues lie.   If a person learns to trust others for feeding, nurturing, comfort, and safety during this time, then they will hav

How to be Unloving to Your Wife

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH Just as a wife needs to read what it feels like to be disrespectful to her husband, a man needs to read what it feels like to be unloving to his wife.   So if you are a wife reading this, please don’t email this article to your husband and demand he reads it.   If you are a husband reading this, please take it as it was written, tongue-in-cheek.   Sometimes you can see things more clearly by identifying what it looks to be unloving rather than loving. These can be done nearly anywhere as your wife is sure to take offense at each and every one.   Just be careful not to do all of them at the same time or you might overload her with feelings of resentment.   Rather, spread them out over a period of time to make sure she knows just how much you don’t love her. ·          Her home – Whenever possible, point out all of the things that are wrong in the house and how it never looks like she contributes to the care of it.   This is especially effectiv

What Type of Narcissictic Husband Do You Have? pt2

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH A Bully Narcissist may have you intimidated.   A Girly Narcissist may have you feeling bi-polar.    A Poker Face Narcissist may have you questioning reality.   A Debater Narcissist may have you arguing with yourself.   But a Psychotic Narcissist will have you downright fearful with little justification for how or why you are feeling that way.   The urge to run in the opposite direction will be just as strong as the curiosity to explain where the intense feelings are coming from.   It is almost as though you are having a moment of heightened sensitivity where all of your antennas are up and you are on full red alert just looking for the slightest indication that you are in immediate danger but without success.   Any yet you are in danger. For this reason, the Psychotic Narcissist becomes an interesting study in how a Narcissistic Personality Disorder can become so intense that they proudly commit heinous acts of violence with no morsel of empathy

What Type of Narcissistic Husband Do You Have?

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH You have finally realized that you are married to a narcissist.   Everyone else around you already knew this and even warned you about him but for some reason you thought it would be different.   Maybe you believed that he would change for you and maybe he did before you got married but as soon as you walked down the aisle everything changed.   Suddenly this incredible dreamy person who swept you off your feet, met and even exceeded your every expectation, became this other alternate ego.   At first he convinced you that you were the problem and then you finally realized that he is. Now what do you do?   Well there are several obvious destructive options: have an affair, run to another county, develop an addiction, become even more depressed, gossip about him to a few hundred of your girlfriends, or end the marriage in divorce (which seems easy but is often very ugly).   Or instead you could learn to understand what you are dealing with and accept

When Small Spaces Equal Big Fears

By Chris Hammond   Have you ever found yourself in a small tight space like a storage closet, a closed MRI, or an elevator and out of nowhere you felt like you were going to lose it?   Suddenly your breath seems lost, your palms and underarms sweat, your heart races, you feel light-headed and your stomach does flips.   The next thing you know, you are looking for a way out and analyzing how fast you can escape.   Then you become angry because you have not escaped yet and the desire to run away fast is so ove rwhelming that you could scream.   If so, you might have experienced an anxiety attack. The problem with anxiety attacks is they happen when you least expect it or worse, when you really don’t have the time to properly deal with it.   But it cannot be ignored.   If you chose to ignore the anxiety attack and deny its existence, it will come back again and again with a vengeance.   The best plan for action is to revisit your last attack in your mind and look for the fo

Does Worry Steal Your Joy?

  By Dwight Bain Little kids do it, senior citizens do it, Presidents and Prime Ministers do it… they worry too much. Do you let this common pattern steal your joy, if so you are not alone since worry affects everyone from 5 to 85. Women are especially prone to this emotion that steals so much joy from living. Women worry about many different things, from finances to body image to relationships to work or even to worry about their mother's approval, even if their mother is 90! Yet the same psychological drive is fueling this stressful emotion no matter what triggers it. I believe the real source behind the worry most women feel is control. Not control in the sense of being a manipulative monster, (like Jane Fonda's character in the chick flick film "Monster-in-Law"), rather it's the need to know what's happening around her so she can feel empowered, safe and in control of her emotions and environment. Think of it this w