The unconditional presence of someone who loves us hearkens back to the past and repairs our childhood sense of being unwanted. At the same time, no human being can or is expected to be fully and unconditionally present all the time. An individual…

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Put most simply, he borrowed my brain. We do this for one another all the time. Current research clearly indicates that we are not walled-in, freestanding individuals. Our human brains—in fact, most mammals’ brains—are built for co-regulation.

Afflicted by a lack of self-love, romantic relationships become almost impossible, for one of the central requirements of a capacity to accept the love of another turns out to be a confident degree of affection for ourselves, built up over the years, largely in childhood.

At every stage of our life span, our inner self requires the nurturance of loving people who are attuned to our feelings and responsive to our needs. They are the ideal sources that foster our inner resources of personal power, lovability, and serenity. Those who love us understand us and are available to us with an attention,…

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