Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

Where do people's problems come from? This section discusses how people develop difficulties in an interpersonal context. Sometimes a past of traumatic experiences leads us to believe we're unworthy of good treatment or success. Low Self-Esteem and its Connection to Cognitive Dissonance explores this complicated phenomenon, and implores the reader to reach past this nonsensical, but practically inevitable, way of thinking. In spite of how negative experiences often lead to problems in one's life, it's amazing how often people manage not to knuckle under and develop aggressiveness, defensiveness, and a need to avoid intimacy. How Identical Circumstances Lead to Opposite Personalities uncovers the odd tendency for different individuals to respond very differently to the same experiences. Although emotional problems often do arise from bad things happening, it is absolutely amazing how often significant accomplishments come from a negative past. Creating Strength from Weakness discusses how our greatest skills and accomplishments are almost always directly related to our greatest weaknesses. Finally, in Loss and Hope, the ways in which loss creates very specific kinds of problems for particular kinds of people is discussed, with special emphasis on the way in which loss can also lead to significant realizations and progress in one's life.