For the first time in the five years since she died, I recently dreamed about my mother. I met her in heaven. She was walking next to my father and describing heaven: “It’s all about love here. Everyone loves everyone else.” When we think about heaven and love, the last place that comes to mind […]

Kathryn Voight will miss the feeling of her forehead touching her husband’s when they fall asleep. Most of us don’t spend time thinking of these things. Most of us have the luxury not to. Kathryn and Jerry Voight were enjoying their lives. In 1998 Kathryn was a 62-year-old woman enjoying her career and her children; […]

When Sally first came to treatment several years ago, she was a 35-year-old lawyer who, by all appearances, was an accomplished, successful woman. She gave her father credit as a role model for her professional success. But she was angry with her mother, whom she described as “weak” or “lazy.” Her mother, I learned, had […]

I am angry. Lately the news has been filled with awful stories of child abuse, neglect, abduction, a videotape of a mother beating her child. There was the story of a Pennsylvania teenager allegedly sent away by his family and starved, and another about an 11-year-old boy who said his parents forced him to sell […]

Last month I wrote about a woman who was abused by her parents as a child and, despite many years of emotional distance, still carried many of the resulting burdens. I suggested that forgiveness not only releases the burdens but can help reclaim lost power in a relationship. Although the strength of forgiveness rests with […]

Sept. 11 will be this nation’s national day of mourning. We will come together to reflect and talk about what we lost and about how things are now different. We will mourn the loss of our illusion of security and we will express our great sadness and fear about our children’s future. Since that tragic […]

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived To revenge myself Against my father, not For what he was – For what I was; from the beginning of time, In childhood, I thought That pain meant I was not loved It meant I loved. “First Memory,” by Louise Gluck Dear Dr. Dan: I understand from previous […]

Dear Dr. Dan: I have been married for more than 30 years, and have three grown children. Although two are doing quite well, one is living alone with her teenage children after being divorced for the second time. She struggles both financially and emotionally. My husband has had chronic anxiety and depression for most of […]