Picture This: Visualizing Your Partner May Improve Psychological Well-Being
Everybody has attachments to specific people in their lives. When young, people are attached to their caregivers. As they mature, people may develop strong attachments to mentors, coaches, close friends, and even intimate partners. In adulthood, one of the most significant attachment figures an individual has is that person’s spouse, or committed romantic partner. Attachment relationships can be positive or negative. Strong, loving relationships are deemed positive attachments and promote harmony, respect, and individuality. Emotionally abusive, intimidating, and violent relationships can create... Read More
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When I am asked about anxiety and where it comes from, I remind people that it is so important to look into one's past to see how past events can play a role as well. Things that may have happened years before can definitely lead to present (and future) issues, as well as leave us to doubt our ability at times ( a la "will I truly be able to manage these new tasks at work," or "will people really be there for me as my relationships have not gone the way I have wanted. I'm not so sure"). This uncertainty can create a great deal of anxiety and doubt.
Psychologist Charles Bentley eloquently describes... 
Shyness and fear are not unusual traits for children. When young children begin to experience new situations and new people, they often exhibit hesitation. As they age, some of these children may continue to be apprehensive in unfamiliar environments, while others may comfortably assimilate themselves to their surroundings. 
Your social life, the quality of it, was wired into your gray matter by the age of 3, according to current thinking on child development. After a minute of contemplating that statement, the immense impact of early childhood caregivers becomes clear. This subject comes to mind after reading a recent news story about Artyom Saleviev.
Artyom was first in the news in 2010. He is the Russian boy who was adopted by a U.S. couple, the Hansens, 3 years ago. After being part of the Hansen family for 5 months, Artyom was put on a plane bound for Russia by his adoptive mother. Artyom carried a letter which... 
Foster care providers face challenges that most caregivers never experience. Children placed in their care come with a history of negative experiences that can include neglect, sexual abuse, violence, emotional unavailability, mental abuse, verbal abuse, exposure to drug and alcohol use, and other traumatic events. These children often lack the basic skills necessary to develop healthy relationships with caregivers and cannot interact in empathetic and understanding ways with peers and others. Because these children had impaired 
Healthy conflict resolution is essential to maintaining positive and constructive adult relationships. Individuals usually learn how to handle conflict in childhood. Children watch the way adults work through disagreements and model those patterns of behavior as they develop into adults and begin to form relationships with others. The bonds that children have with their caregivers also influence the way in which they address conflicts. People who have secure attachments with their parents and caregivers are often able to work through challenges with other people in respectful, affectionate, and... 
Attachment bonds form the foundation of a child’s well-being and set the stage for their behavior patterns. Children who have secure 
Attachment bonds are formed in early childhood. Relationships with nurturing attentive caregivers result in secure attachment bonds in children as they age. However, dismissive caregivers who neglect or avoid relationships with their children tend to cause insecure and dismissive attachment behaviors and perceptions in these children. The 
In the process of developing our own voices (individuation), we develop a sense of self in relationship to the significant others in our lives. Growing up, parents, grandparents, siblings, and later, peers, act as mirrors and reflect back to us their ideas about who we are and what we are about. The more significant the relationship, the greater the impact on our ideas about who we are. When a significant other or others take up a lot of space in our heads and become a too-present audience to our decisions, behaviors, and thoughts, there is an interference in the process of individuation. The other... 
Strong mother-daughter relationships provide many positive psychological benefits for teen girls. For African-American girls with mental health problems, this relationship may also serve to prevent risky sexual behavior that could lead to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). “Relative to other ethnic groups, African-American girls tend to initiate sex earlier, report higher rates of sexual activity during adolescence, and they account for the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea,” said Erin Emerson of the Department of Psychiatry, Community Outreach Intervention Projects at the University... 
Empathy is an emotion that is directly related to the bonds that were formed in childhood. “Children from 
Individuals who have avoidant 
More people will care for an aging parent in the coming years than ever before. Advances in modern medicine have extended life expectancy and the relationship between the aging and their 
