simcha's postings about love, connection, parenting & personal growth
Some years back, I visited the Freud Museum in London, once the final home of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and his daughter Anna Freud, a pioneering child psychoanalyst. (The Freud family had come to England as refugees, following the Nazi annexation of Austria in March 1938.)
On Freud’s desk in his study stood a metal figure of a porcupine with quills, a figure he apparently kept there all the time. Why a porcupine?
Brain science supports anecdotal evidence that compassion is infinitely more effective in de-escalating conflict and nurturing intimacy than are cool logic and rational argument. The following tactics are generally less than successful in trying to get the understanding and caring we need from our partner:
Human sexuality is complex, and the nature of intimate partners’ circumstances and interactions is varied and complicated. That said, at the risk of oversimplifying all of the above, I share with you a simple, but wise, quotation that rethinks…. foreplay.