Unhitching from Bitching: Love Lessons for Psychotherapists

Dr. Fireman explains his views on the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in light of his experience in practicing psychiatry with particular attention to relationships with spouses, lovers, friends, grown children and parents. The work encourages the reader to deal with the facts of particular relationships rather than the words which are used to describe them. Any individual can say “I love you”; the question is, do the words and actions align. Endurance and joy in interpersonal relationships is not derived from hope or promise. In fact some individuals do not have the behavioral character traits and capacities which entitle them to pledge intimacy. By applying the lessons of this text to one’s sex, like and love life, the reader can learn about and avoid life’s most seductive and dangerous word games related to “Love.” Using the lessons of this work one can discover how their interpersonal life has prospered or failed on the basis of ideas rather than reality and how misperceptions in these areas may freeze one’s behavior into habit without choice. The work also allows the reader to identify and inventory the behavioral mechanisms that create either loving or damaging relationships and, when necessary, to unhitch from relationships that are objectively not worth pursuing.