I recently received the following request: “Hi Dr. Paul — I would be interested in an article that talks about having needs vs. being needy. I was brought up to be ashamed of my needs. I was supposed to be self-sufficient. As a result, I am ashamed of neediness and often don’t recognize my own […]

How often do you withhold the truth from someone important to you – your partner, friend, parent, child, co-worker – because you know he or she will get angry rather than care about you? How you do feel when you don’t speak your truth about something that is important to you? It is likely that […]

I received the following email from someone who had read one of my articles: “One topic that I feel that I haven’t seen covered much is the issue of body-image related stress, anxiety, and insecurity, and how to fight it. We all age. Personally, I am 27 years old, and rapidly going from a handsome […]

Leah called me for a phone session because she was menopausal and was having a very hard time losing weight. She had gained 12 pounds and was unhappy about it. “Everything I used to do doesn’t work anymore,” she told me. “I used to be able to cut back on my food for a few […]

All of us, as we were growing up, learned a myriad of ways to try to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. One of the ways we might have learned is to lie. We all had many opportunities to learn this way of protecting ourselves, which is a form of manipulation/control: […]

What if there really is ONE major cause of relationship problems, one issue that if you address, would change everything? The good news and the bad news is – there is! The good news is that it makes it easier to understand why you might be having problems in your relationship. The bad news is […]

Peter had been working with me on the phone for a number of months. He had sought my help because of problems in his relationship with his wife, Anika. Peter grew up with an extremely empty, invasive, controlling mother and an extremely empty emotionally withdrawn father. His mother constantly pulled on Peter to fill her […]

Caring = giving to another from love, for the joy of it – as a free gift Caretaking = giving to get love, giving with an agenda attached, giving yourself up Even though the actions of caring and the actions of caretaking might look exactly the same, the intention is totally different, so the energy […]

Angelo had been married to Serena for 15 years before divorcing. In his marriage, Angelo was a caretaker, always trying to please Serena, always trying to get her approval and avoid her disapproval. Serena was a taker – handing responsibility to Angelo for her happiness and often angry with him when he didn’t do what […]

“Let’s talk tonight,” said Callie. “Oh no, not again!” thought Darren as he gave Callie a blank stare, feeling like a deer in the headlights. Darren knew from past experience that “Let’s talk,” meant, “Let’s talking about what you are doing wrong, and about how you are not meeting my needs, and about how hurt […]