Psychology and the bigger picture Archives | Page 2 of 2

52 Ways to Show I Love You: Recognizing the Relationship

52 Ways to Show I Love You: Recognizing the Relationship Understanding and honoring the "we" transcends meeting individual needs. Source: takazart/Pixabay On February 26th, the film La La Land, nominated in 14 categories, won six Academy Awards. Musicals have always been my favorite film genre, watching dance my favorite spectator entertainment. From Busby Berkeley through Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron to Gene Kelly and now Robert Fairchild, I feel the thrills of freedom and yearning in a dancer’s movements as I watch, [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:03:58+00:00March 29th, 2017|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Life, Refracted, Psychology and the bigger picture|

52 Ways to Show I Love You: Choosing

Where to go? What route to take? Photo by Antranias Every day we make countless choices, some consciously and many unconsciously. Do we look at our motivation? The consequences of the countless decisions that affect our relationships? Through them, we are forever balancing closeness and distance, self-interest and that of the one whom we love. What do we need and want? What does the other person need and want? With the transition to parenthood, we learn to [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:03:58+00:00March 3rd, 2017|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Life, Refracted, Psychology and the bigger picture|

52 Ways to Show I Love You – #2, Touching

To make us more aware of all the ways we can make love real, that we can show "I Love You" both with and without words, each Sunday I am posting a piece on PsychologyToday.com describing the what, how and why of another way to express love. Today's entry describes "Touching" and appears here. Please send me your own stories of ways you show love or feel it coming from someone else. I will keep track of them and [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:03:59+00:00January 8th, 2017|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Close Relationships of many kinds, Psychology and the bigger picture|

52 Ways to Show I Love You, Inaugural Column

Today, I am delighted to wish you a Happy New Year. May the year 2017 bring you excellent health, many joys, and the very brightest of discoveries. I am also delighted to share my first column for "52 Ways to Show I Love You", written for my blog on Psychology Today, "Life, Refracted". You can sign up to receive the column directly from Psychology Today on that page or on my own website. If you sign up to automatically receive [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:03:59+00:00January 1st, 2017|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Close Relationships of many kinds, Psychology and the bigger picture, Uncategorized|

Blog posts missing – why and what’s coming soon!

Dear Reader, I have been neglecting this blog for weeks, ever since I began posting more scholarly or professional pieces as a regular column, “Life, Refracted”, on PsychologyToday.com. The links to those essays appear on this website, under “Articles and Essays”. How did this come about? In the spring of 2016, in support of Miracle at Midlife: A Transatlantic Romance, my publicist suggested I write “10 Things About Long-Distance Love”. Soon I realized that I had far more than ten [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:03:59+00:00December 18th, 2016|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Close Relationships of many kinds, Psychology and the bigger picture|

Women Tend and Befriend, Witness the Bonobos

A sense of sisterhood runs deep. In a recent article in the New York Times, Natalie Angier reported on female bonding in bonobos. She described a species equal to chimpanzees in biological closeness to humans and intelligence, but radically different in social organization and mores. Bonobos are matriarchal instead of male-dominated, cooperative rather than competitive. They nurture their young rather than murder them, and they are quick to help or protect one another when need arises. They share, rather than fight [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:04:04+00:00September 17th, 2016|Categories: Close Relationships of many kinds, Psychology and the bigger picture|

He Risked His Life to Prevent a Jump Off a Bridge

A recent local news release brought the story of Nicholas Doddo, a college student, who risked his own life to save that of another young man whom he had never seen before. Sitting in Friday evening traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge, Mr. Doddo had suddenly realized that someone was racing headlong to the barrier with the intent of jumping over it to his inevitable death. Mr. Doddo’s instincts led him to leave his car, cross traffic lanes in [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:04:04+00:00August 15th, 2016|Categories: Aspects of Loving, Psychology and the bigger picture|

The Roots of Empathy Lie in Temperament and Attachment

To the best of my knowledge, the mother of six week old twins took the video below, documenting empathy, without the help of Photoshop or any other video-altering aid. I cannot imagine it as being staged. Six weeks old babies simply would not tolerate being tinkered with in such a manner, even to please the one who provides their care. I found the video remarkable because, at an age in which learning is mostly about how to recognize caregivers, smile as [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:04:49+00:00May 23rd, 2016|Categories: Psychology and the bigger picture|

A Dentist Finds Meaning in His Work

I watched him carefully contour the temporary crown. He wore magnifying lenses on his forehead while four high-speed tool cables neatly arched across his tray. His assistant carried out requests with the precision of a long-time loving partner who honors his mentor. My dentist sanded and polished, turned and shaped the provisional molar cap that he had created with a malleable impression material. I could feel his love for his chosen work. and wondered if perhaps he had a genetic [...]

Roni Beth Admin2018-01-31T21:05:11+00:00April 26th, 2016|Categories: Psychology and the bigger picture|