Passion 101

Do You Turn Toward, Turn Away Or Turn Against? Each day, our partners make many attempts to connect with us, both verbal and nonverbal. World renowned couples research, Dr. John Gottman calls these attempts “bids” for emotional connection. A bid can be a question, a look, an affectionate touch or anything else that opens the [...]

Are you able to share your fantasies with your partner? My work is about helping couples who are committed and really love each other to recover their passion. There are many reasons why a couple’s passion fades, and of course each couple is different. There is no cookie cutter solution that fits everyone. One of [...]

Do You REALLY Want A Better Relationship? Over the last twenty years that I’ve been working with couples, I keep hearing, “I love my boyfriend (or girlfriend or wife or husband or …) to death and I want a better relationship, help us!” First of all, that “I love them to death” statement always makes [...]

What are the Three Stages of Relationship and why are they important? In a previous post I wrote about “Why We Choose Our Partner” (click here to read it) and the “Imago”, the idealized blueprint for relationship that we carry in our unconscious mind. Imago is Latin for image. Today I will write about what [...]

What is an “Imago” and what does it have to do with how and why we choose our partner?  As a psychologist and couples therapist, I’m often asked what my view is on what brings couples together, on what that attraction is, and what it is about.  Here is my answer, and it lies within [...]

What are the ingredients for a successful relationship? In my twenty years as a couples counselor, I’ve narrowed it down to five basic pillars that need to be established.  While there are many more components to a successful relationship, these five form the basics. So here they are, the Five Pillars of a Successful Relationship: [...]

All-day foreplay is an incredible way to build up passion in your relationship.  And by all-day foreplay, I mean more than just kissing, petting and oral sex.  This post is about the largest sex organ of all: your mind!  Everything can be considered foreplay is you use it properly. I’ve written about the mechanics of [...]

The lizard brain! What can this possibly have to do with relationships and couples therapy? Many of the couples I see in counseling are very triggered, very reactive in their relationship with each other.  Intellectually, they are often aware of this, yet they are still so challenged in making changes and in becoming more loving [...]

Most singles and couples that I treat ask me about my philosophy on relationships and couples counseling.  It really is a great question and one that all clients deserve to have answered by their counselors, psychotherapists and coaches. My beliefs are pretty simple and fairly humble.  I’m not some grandiose “expert” who believes that he [...]

Can anyone possibly answer the question of what women want?  It certainly is a question for the ages!  Over a year ago, I wrote a blogpost entitled, “What Men Want In Relationships?” and it got the most comments of anything I’ve ever written on the Passion 101 blogsite.  It sparked a strong reaction, both in [...]