USING THIS MANUAL
An Introduction to the "Great Life Machine"
PART I
INDIVIDUALS IN RELATIONSHIPS
Section 1
Change: Getting You Working Well
Chapter 1 - You Need to Know You're Great
The one core factor in healthy self-esteem is the knowledge that you're great. Armed with that knowledge, a person becomes more resilient within relationships and recovers more quickly from disaster. If you know you're great, you are less self-centered since focusing too exclusively on oneself is only necessary when you don't know you're great. Knowing you're great is, unfortunately, not an easy knowledge to develop, but to the extent that you do accomplish that achievement, you, and all those with whom you choose to relate, flourish and thrive.
Chapter 2 - Changing Our Past Adaptation for Our Future
The personality with which we grow up is an adaptation to our childhood. Now that we're adults, however, we need to adapt to a world of endless possibilities.
Chapter 3 - Undoing the Troubled-Past, Troubled-Future Cycle
Horrible experiences in one's past unfortunately lead to poor chances for a good future. This article discusses that process and points to ways it can be undone.
Chapter 4 - Balance and the Motivation to Change Balance is everything in life. It's only when we get too far out of balance, however, that we're motivated enough to make a change.
Chapter 5 - The Importance of Growth
If there is one common and most important meaning of life, it is that everything is growing... or at least trying to.
Section 2
Development: Troubleshooting For Wear and Tear
Chapter 6 - Low Self-Esteem and Its Connection to Cognitive Dissonance
Observed carefully, the reason for low self-esteem can be traced to holding onto the past as if it predicts our future.
Chapter 7 - How Identical Circumstances Lead to Opposite Personalities
We frequently notice that people with identical circumstances develop opposite personalities. This article shows how those opposite tendencies can be understood as exaggerated methods for distancing the self from what were, initially, similar traumas.
Chapter 8 - Creating Strength From Weakness
Our greatest accomplishments and our greatest strengths are, strangely enough, always directly related to our most devastating inadequacies.
Chapter 9 - Loss and Hope
Loss has its worst impact for mourning and grieving where who (or what) has been lost is crucial to one's ability to feel whole. Acceptance of loss, however, is rich in potential for carrying on into the future with renewed hope.
Section 3
Living: Your Everyday Maintenance in Interaction
Chapter 10 - Criticism and Us
An analysis of what drives our criticism towards others leads to an understanding of our discomfort with ourselves.
Chapter 11 - Balancing the Animal and the Spiritual
This article discusses the connection between our animal and spiritual natures.
Chapter 12 - The Power and Control Addiction
People sometimes need power and control over others to help them compensate for weakness and inadequacy in themselves. Nevertheless, power and control tactics often lead to great achievements. Achieving lasting relationships with others who really care, however, is not possible while dominating and controlling. Thus, as compelling as power and control might be, recovery from this addiction is necessary in forging the greatest achievement of all – love.
Chapter 13 - Understanding Boundaries
It's a common term that is not well-understood. This article explains the concept and how it affects our daily lives.
Chapter 14 - The Failure of Empathy in Everyday Life
We often fail to be empathic when a situation makes us vulnerable, or when our self-esteem is challenged, but maintaining our empathy is necessary in maintaining our connection with the world around us.
Chapter 15 - The Crippling Effects of Worry
Worry not only hurts the worrier, but also has a significant impact on others in the worrier's life.
Section 4
Tools: Caring for You and Your Communication with Others
Chapter 16 - Breathe!
Notice how you often don't breathe deeply enough, start to breathe better, and change your life.
Chapter 17 - Be Your Own Best Friend
An appeal to all those who feel isolated and alone, suggesting they take care of themselves in the same way they would take care of their very best friend.
Chapter 18 - The "Big What if..."
When you're really stressed, remember, if you lost everything you have, you'd still have what matters most – those you love.
Chapter 19 - The Writing Cure
Writing helps people in many ways. In this article, specific procedures are presented to help people deal with insomnia and traumatic experiences.
Chapter 20 - Assertiveness: The 30% Solution
Learn to be assertive and you will get what you want, and remain in a healthy balance with the world around you.
PART II
COUPLES AND COUPLES' COMMUNICATION
Section 5
Can Two Parts Beat as One?
Chapter 21 - Women and Men
Although mostly all human beings are more the same than different, understanding the differences between the sexes can be truly instructive and healthy for relationships.
Chapter 22 - The Three A's of Relationship
When a relationship moves from chemistry to everyday life, individuals in couples need to accept and accommodate each others' needs and preferences, and assert their own way, if the relationship is to last.
Chapter 23 - Connection and Independence
Men and women are made with two very different primary motivations, connection and independence.
Chapter 24 - Understanding Personality Styles in Couples
Personality Development and Its Patterns in Couples.
Section 6
New Cars, Fast Cars, Backfires, and Crashes
Chapter 25 - The Dating Fantasy
Falling in love is great, but at least in the beginning we're in love with what we want, not who we're with.
Chapter 26 - Sex is not a Drive: It's Just Real Important
There are many reasons sex is so important to human beings, but it is not, as Freud argued, a "drive."
Chapter 27 - Affairs and Divorce
Affairs often seem to occur for the express purpose of causing a divorce. This article examines that process and makes a plea for working out problems and/or divorcing without creating an explosion by having an affair.
Section 7
Tools: Methods for Making Yourself Fully Understood
Chapter 28 - Communication From The Heart
We have to communicate with emotional expressiveness to be truly understood.
Chapter 29 - Key Signals
It can be the key to jump-starting change. Sometimes just a word or a signal can help people move past the escalation of negativity that so often bogs down relationships.
Chapter 30 - "I" Statements
Communicate difficult emotions more usefully by stripping blame and defensiveness from what you say.
PART III
FAMILIES AND PARENTING
Section 8
Family Relations
Chapter 31 - From Id to Family System or
The Id is the Engine in the Great Life Machine
Our most powerful animal instincts influence our entire experience. How we balance and regulate those instincts defines our character and our relationships with others.
Chapter 32 - Emotional Space
There's only so much room for emotions within a relationship – whether you are with your children or your spouse, you deserve to have your share.
Section 9
Parenting
Chapter 33 - The Essentials of Parenting
Finding a balance between kindness/affection and consistency/firmness.
Chapter 34 - Who's to Say What's "Right" in Parenting?Authoritarian or Child-Centered, or a balance between the two, only you know what's really right for you.
Chapter 35 - You Don't Know How Much They Love You
Kids wonder why us parents have so many rules – what they really need to understand is just how much we love them.
Section 10
Building Good Kids
Chapter 36 - From Materialism to Integrity:
Building Blocks of the Healthy Human Structure
Discussion of the primary attributes of mental health that must be instilled within our children in order to combat the effects of materialism and unbridled selfishness.
Chapter 37 - Freedom and Responsibility
When kids don't understand why you won't let them do things, simply point to how freedom is always balanced by responsibility.
Chapter 38 - Bullying
The issue of bullying is very complicated, but exploring the reasons it exists, and why it's more prominent at particular ages, can help in leading to better solutions.
Chapter 39 - "Be A Man"
Discusses the Insult and the reality.
Chapter 40 - It Must be Hard to be a Girl!
Girls and women are held to a complex standard of expectations in the world of today. They must compete with men, yet stay true to their special feminine know-how. The choices they need to make in life often lead them to a life of doing it all. Unless they do try to do it all, most women will face some lack of fulfillment. If they spread themselves too thin, however, there's also a good chance they'll feel very little appreciation.
Section 11
Tools: Using Discipline
Chapter 41 - Leaks in Discipline
There are only two reasons parents have trouble with discipline: Consistency and Undermining.
Chapter 42 - The Satisfaction Meter: A Reward System for Regular People
It can be difficult to use a reward system when your kids are acting out, but this easy to use approach is enough to do the trick in many regular families.
Chapter 43 - It's So Hard to be Bad
When you think about it, having bad behavior just makes everything worse for a kid. Really, when all is done and told, it's a lot easier to be good than bad.
Chapter 44 - Good Discipline for Acting Out Kids
General guidelines for disciplining your children.
Chapter 45 - Sample Reward System
An intricate plan for forging good behavior.
PART IV
DIAGNOSIS IN THE INTERPERSONAL WORLD
Section 12
Major Diagnoses
Chapter 46 - Depression
It's the most common of all mental health problems and it hits almost everyone at one time or another.
Chapter 47 - Anxiety
Everyone knows that life can be stressful. We all feel anxiety sometimes.
Chapter 48 - Bipolar Disorder
Being too intense basically describes the bipolar condition. When extreme intensity is part of any disorder, bipolar disorder is likely to be diagnosed at least as a secondary part of the problem. Getting clients to understand their intensity can be a transformative first step in helping them overcome it.
Chapter 49 - Psychotic Disorders
Experiencing psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, delusions, and/or confusion, is perhaps the worst possible psychological experience. These symptoms arise from a combination of extreme emotional intensity and a deeply held feeling that such emotional intensity is too dangerous to express.
Chapter 50 - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
PTSD is a devastating psychological disorder that is not well understood. Essentially its cause is the conflict between remembering and avoiding pain. Traumatic experience is simultaneously impossible to remember or integrate and impossible to forget or avoid.
Chapter 51 - Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder
Helps differentiate behavioral and emotional problems from ADHD.
Section 13
Personality Diagnoses
Chapter 52 - Histrionic Personality
Histrionic personality grows from an inability to feel special combined with an inability to take responsibility, and is typically identified in dramatic or flamboyant behavior that satisfies the desire for attention, but ultimately leaves the histrionic feeling unloved and empty.
Chapter 53 - Passive Aggressive Personality
Passive Aggressive Personality develops from a need to distance oneself from conflict, which is accomplished by pleasing others while, unfortunately, ignoring one's own needs.
Chapter 54 - Narcissistic Personality
Narcissistic Personality is not what it seems. Narcissists act selfish because they have no connection with their true self. They live primarily for the impression they make on others, but never achieve what they really need – love and recognition of their true selves.
Chapter 55 - Borderline Personality
Borderline Personality involves the thwarted striving for independence within a context of abandonment, thus causing clinging with hope of becoming united, withdrawing to avoid being controlled, and rage to maintain control. But only a consistent relationship with a loving other who cannot be manipulated has any chance of helping the borderline recover.
Chapter 56 - Obsessive Compulsive Personality
Trying to be perfect has some advantages over the long haul, but it also causes interpersonal problems and leaves the obsessive compulsive especially vulnerable to the disasters they believe they can avoid by attempting to be perfect.
Chapter 57 - The Other Personalities
Although the borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, passive-aggressive and obsessive compulsive personality disorders are the most likely to seek psychotherapy, there are several others that do not generally volunteer for psychotherapy in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, these other personality types are equally common and thus are encountered equally frequently within our daily lives.
Section 14
Addictions
Chapter 58 - Addictions: A Relationship to Remember
The relationship of the addict to a drug is much like a torrid love affair that creates great havoc and that all too often, unfortunately, never ends.
Chapter 59 - Codependency
This concept, which basically means being addicted to addicts, is explained and defined. There is only one solution. Be willing to leave.
