Category Archives: Mental Health
The Most Noble Work is Forging Character
Malformed Conscience and Character Disturbance
When a malformed conscience, virtually nonexistent conscience, or absent conscience lies defines someone’s character pathology, intervening in traditional ways is futile. That’s why it’s so important that toxic relationship survivors, who have most likely already endured years of gaslighting and other trauma, get the right kind of help should they manage to drag their character-impaired partner into therapy.
Mastering Appetites and Aversions
Folks who too often run from the difficult and over-indulge in the pleasurable are almost always trouble. And while they’ll often promise they’ll do better, that doesn’t mean they have a real commitment to proper self-management. My clinical practice was chock full of individuals who couldn’t or woudn’t manage their appetites and aversions properly. That left their partners to clean up the inevitable messes.
Finding a Partner with a Healthy Self-Image
Narcissistic Pomposity and Pretense
The 10 Qualities of Wholesome Character
Wholesome character is in particularly short supply these days. The problem is not just narcissism. And it’s not just antisociality. Character disturbances encompass a wide spectrum of problematic traits and behaviors that vary in types and degrees of severity. It’s bad enough that we have such a shortage of wholesome character. And it’s bad enough that behavior once regarded as unusual, unbecoming, or even outrageous, has become normalized. But what’s even more appalling is that we seem to have forgotten what good character is all about and what it takes to cultivate and promote it.
Gratitude Pays In Many Ways
Healthy Versus Unhealthy Self-Image
A person can see themself as inherently defective, inadequate, unlovable, etc., and that type of unhealthy self-image can cause many problems in life and lead them to forge relationships for a lot of unhealthy reasons. But a person can also harbor a self-image that’s distorted for sure, but in an overly glowing or grandiose, as opposed to negative sort of way. And persons who think too much of themselves or want others to adore them cause very different problems in relationships.