When a book about romantic love is called “Love, Inc.,” the reader is forewarned: This is not your typical love story. Author and Middlebury College professor Laurie Essig calls herself a romantic. On the first page of “Love, Inc.,” she says, “I fervently believe in happily ever after and true love always.” But she has a big problem with romance. At a time when the world is besieged with catastrophic problems, from climate change and dangerous political ideologies to the concentration of wealth in the wallets of the few and dire economic prospects for the many, people are looking to love as the answer. Love, we are told, is magical. Find it, and we will live happily ever after. Essig argues that the [...]

Saying no to someone makes you very uncomfortable. So you don’t. You’re always available to everyone. In fact, you tend to put others’ needs above your own. Without hesitation. You rarely express a differing opinion (even when you clearly disagree). You apologize. A lot. You hate when someone is upset with you. You regularly find yourself feeling overwhelmed because you have about 100,000,000 things on your plate (again, because you struggle with saying no). Maybe you don’t do all these things. But you do many of them. Which officially makes you a people pleaser. Which makes setting boundaries really, really hard for you. This is absolutely understandable. It makes sense. Because your need to people please likely has a long history, and you’ve [...]

There are times when saying you’re sorry makes sense. You bumped into someone. You said something hurtful. You yelled. You arrived late to lunch. You missed a friend’s birthday. But many of us over-apologize. That is, we apologize for things we don’t need to apologize for. Kelly Hendricks knew she had a problem with over-apologizing when she bumped into a tree and blurted out, “I’m sorry!” Hendricks used to apologize for everything, she said. Many of us apologize for everything, too. We apologize for needing space and for needing help. We apologize for “bothering” someone. We apologize for crying and for saying no. We apologize for apologizing. And maybe we even apologize for who we are. Maybe we even apologize for existing. Where [...]

Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory is another work in the Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology. I have come to believe that at least three theories are indispensable in learning and understanding how and why we behave the way we do — attribution theory, attachment theory, and our underlying physiology of safety, called the polyvagal theory. The polyvagal theory was developed by Stephen Porges and presented to the Society for Psychophysiological Research in 1994. The theory takes into account how our autonomic nervous system is constantly working to keep us safe. Very simply, the components are our parasympathetic system (“rest and digest”), the mammalian ventral vagal system (positive social engagement), sympathetic system (“fight or flight”), and the reptilian dorsal vagal (freeze, faint, shut [...]

There’s something about turning forty. What that is, exactly, is the question addressed by fifteen women and the editor, Lindsey Mead, in the thoughtful, spirited, poignant, and immensely readable anthology, On Being 40 (ish). The contributors, mostly Generation Xers, are a who’s who of writers, artists, thinkers, an even an actress (Jill Kargman of “Odd Mom Out,” who did not become an actress until she was 39). I already knew and admired the work of some of them when I picked up the book; once I read all of their biographical sketches, I realized I should have known about all of them. Happily, the topic of being forty is not very constraining. As I approached the end of each chapter, I couldn’t wait [...]

A common but often undetected source of conflict in relationships is harboring an inaccurate belief about your partner’s (or teenager’s) intentions. Our perception of why the other person did or didn’t do something, and what we believe that means — is often the true culprit behind persistent hurt, anger, and/or frustration — not just the behavior itself. These misinterpretations tend to have a negative bias, assume the worst, and personalize — an unfounded presumption of purposeful or negative intent. Our assumptions about others, though seamlessly taken as the truth, are often derived from our own past experiences, psychological makeup, and common perceptual biases — not from an accurate assessment of the other person. The ensuing cycle of misunderstanding and disconnection can be difficult to [...]

We know that our partners aren’t mind readers, and it’s best to be clear with our communication. But whether we’re asking for help around the house, reminding our spouse about an unfinished task or requesting some space when we’re sad, it can sound like we’re nagging or criticizing them. Of course, sometimes that’s exactly what we’re doing. But other times, that’s what they hear. Which actually makes physiological sense. According to psychotherapist Mara Hirschfeld, couples are neurobiologically hard-wired to respond to one another differently than they do to everyone else around them.” That’s because, she said, our spouse is an “attachment figure”: “we become emotionally attached or attuned to our partner in such a way that his or her thoughts, feelings, and behavior have the ability [...]

Contrary to what people who lack self-confidence might believe, the trait is not inborn. Nor is it a constant; even self-confident people suffer bouts of self-doubt. And if obstacles to self-confidence were constructed in you by clumsy or even malevolent parenting, these are surmountable. Although, as the authors of The Self-Confidence Workbook concede, between 25 and 50 percent of personality traits may be inherited, even that does not doom anyone to life as a shrinking violet. Co-author Barbara Markway’s previous books were for people struggling with shyness and social anxiety, both of which can be can be alleviated, and which could be considered correlates of low self-confidence. Self-confidence is, “the willingness to take steps toward valued goals, even if you’re anxious and the [...]

Are you a super feeler? Are you easily overwhelmed by your emotions? Do you act out in ways you later wish you had not? In Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster, Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona’s goal is to help people who become overwhelmed by the way they feel by providing step-by-step techniques to get a handle on this flood of emotions. Super feelers might identify with this statement: “You experience your emotions quickly and intensely; believe every thought, interpretation, or hypothesis that comes into your mind as if it were the absolute truth; and then do exactly what the emotion tells you to do. Later on, you regret your actions because you get hurt and the people you care about get hurt too.” People [...]

We face daunting problems in the twenty-first century — polarization that has people at each other’s throats, the isolation that can result from our fraying social bonds, the growing inequality that is exacerbating so many problems. Psychologists offer one set of solutions, such as helping people address unresolved personal issues, guiding them to think about problems in more empathetic and constructive ways, or teaching them better interpersonal skills. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, has a different idea. He believes that an important way to address today’s challenges is to develop and maintain “the physical spaces and organizations that shape the way people interact” — what he [...]