hey mellors.

i didn't mean for my post to be unsupportive to you, i was just concerned that the topic of the thread was how the original poster could get the heat back in their relationship.

as the discussion unfolded it became clear that it was how to spice up a fairly good 10 year long relationship.

as such, i guess i thought that troubles people are having with intimacy and control were seperate issues. but... it is okay :-)

freudian theory is indeed an outdated theory that has been shown to be false (or unfalsifyable) in many respects. fortunately, psychodynamic theorising has come a long way since freud. if you look at the state of other disciplines around the time of freud (biology, chemistry, physics, - there was no psychology, remember) then most of the theories of the day have since been found to be false in many respects. fortunately, theorising in the other sciences has come a long way since then.

there are four major schools of current psychodynamic theorising. ego psychology (which is most closely aligned to freud), object relations, something else that i can't remember..., and self psychology. while they are 'rival' in some respects they are also seen to be complimentary in some respects. there is a lot of recent work that has been done on the neurobiology of attachment that supports some psychodynamic theses such as:

- our attachment relationship to our early attachment figures is highly predictive of our personality / character traits later in life
- our attachment relationship to our early attachment figures is highly predictive of our attachment reltionships later in life

these theses have been empirically shown to be true. sure it is possible for people to 'transcend' early attachment relationships but the way in which people transcend them is by having 'remedial' experiences later in life.

it isn't about holding your parents accountable (blame is beside the point) but it is about attempting to understand why it is that you relinquish control to your attachment figures in the present. attachment relationships are meetings of two people and one person isn't completely responsible for the way things go.

maybe... instead of encouraging you to take control with manageable things so you could experience success with taking control your parent/s wanted to retain control (because of their own needs) and so now you are frightened to take control?

dunno... hard to say when i don't really know anything about you... things to think about at any rate...