Psych News You Can Use

This list of love quotes can come in handy when thinking about your partner and finding words to use to express those hard to share emotions, when it comes time to write that Valentines, Anniversary, Birthday, Mother’s or Father’s Day card. Here’s a brief sample from a long list found at the site linked below:

The best proof of love is trust….Dr. Joyce Brothers

Love is friendship set to music….Pollock

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself….Jean Anouilh

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away….Elbert Hubbard

Love creates an “us” without destroying a “me”….Unknown

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure — a willingness to let our partner enter into the interior of our private world and a genuine interest in the private world of that partner. Couples in love tend to show more of themselves to each other than to any other person….Nathaniel Branden

Love simply cannot spring up without that self-surrender to each other. If either withholds the self, love cannot exist….Dr. E. Stanley Jones

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Some people are emotional manipulators who make you feel guilty, drive you crazy, fight dirty, refuse to take accountability for their actions, and control the emotional climate in order to dominate you. This helpful description of 8 ways people emotionally manipulate others can arm you with an understanding of tactics that might be used against you, and help you protect yourself, possible leading toward healthier self-esteem, and more positive communication and relationships. (more…)

A study of 125 couples with children aged 7-8 years, looked at the way couples are attached toward each other, the parenting styles they use with their children, and their ‘caregiving responsiveness.’ Caregiving responsiveness is the “capacity to be ‘tuned in’ to what the other person needs,” says Abigail Millings, author of the study published in the ‘Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.’ (more…)

People unhappy in their relationship spend more time during disagreements focusing on their anger and frustration. In happy couples, when one partner has a lot of emotion the other tends to balance things out by focusing on understanding their partner and resolving the conflict, according to Prof. Anita Vangelisti at the University of Texas, Austin. (more…)

These 5 basic rules can make a significant difference in how happy you are. If you like something, enjoy it. If you don’t like something, do your best to avoid it. If you can’t avoid it, do your best to change it. If you can’t change it, accept it. And the way to accept it is to change your attitude toward it. (more…)

Comedy writer Dave Barry gives us a very funny, albeit stereotyped, look at the difference between men and women. He begins: “CONTRARY to what many women believe, it’s fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. (more…)

Life inevitably brings its share of stress and anxiety, and how we deal with it has a tremendous effect on our self, our partner and our relationship. Anxiety disorders are a major public health problem in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 18 percent of U.S. adults are afflicted with anxiety, which has a negative effect on our relationships, not to mention the harm it does to oneself. (more…)