Dr. Brenda Schaeffer
   Author & Psychologist

 

Welcome.  This site Is All About Love. The focus is to help you identify characteristics of healthy love and addictive love and to free you to live life more abundantly.  Real love is not addiction, nor is addiction love. Yet these two experiences can come together and result in pain and confusion.  The information is not intended to cure specific problems.  However, with increased awareness, we can solve relationship problems with more compassion and lasting effect.  My hope is that this site gives you a few more pieces to love and life’s puzzle.  

Dr. Brenda Schaeffer

 
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I approach both life and work with sincerity, honesty, and compassion. To me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing a client making healthy changes.

“The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Life is abundant and for celebration.

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Contact me

Dr. Schaeffer is available for appointments, interviews

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Love Addiction Blog Series

Featured
Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part XI

FROM ADDICTIVE LOVE TO HEALTHY BELONGING

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by the imagination -- Voltaire

In my work with clients, a process with seven definable stages in and out of unhealthy or addictive relationships emerged. As I began clarifying those phases with clients, change became less painful—even welcome. They had a roadmap and

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Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part X

FROM POWER PLAYS TO POWER SHARING

A hallmark sign of unhealthy relationships are power plays. A hallmark sign of healthy relationships is power sharing. - Brenda Schaeffer

What is Power?

The transition from childish omnipotence to power-sharing seems to be something we all struggle with. Power is not a commodity outside of us nor is it control over others.

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Is it Love Series
Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part IX
Is it Love Series

POWER PLAYS

When love is without power, it goes idle. When power is without love, it injures.

- Brenda Schaeffer, from Loving Me, Loving You

A common sign of love addiction and unhealthy relationships is the use of power plays. Power plays are manipulative behaviors that keep people relating on an unequal basis. The myth underlying power plays is that there is not enough power for two and is based on the belief that people with power have control and get what they want.

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Is it Love Series
Is it Love Series
Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part VIII
Is it Love Series

SIGNS OF HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

The affirmation of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom, is rooted in one’s capacity to love—in care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge — Erich Fromm

We do need other people. In our evolution as human beings, there is a developing awareness that we are linked with other people in a very profound way. As a psychotherapist I am reminded how basic is the need to experience giving and receiving love, of healthy belonging.

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Is it Love Series
Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part VII

SIGNS OF SEX ADDICTION

Sex can be a sacred way of connecting or it can be the egoist’s way of self-fulfillment. — Brenda Schaeffer

Sometimes it seems as though we have no control over which sexual path we take—the path to love, or the path to addiction. The idea that sex can be an addiction is quite topical and not without its critics. Sex addiction has often been overlooked or minimized by society, individuals, and professionals.

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