by guest blogger Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD, 2nd ed.

What if you had the option to renew your marriage license every five years?

I think we can all agree that we would like to see happier people and a lower divorce rate.

What if every five years, you and your spouse could decide if you wanted to "re-up" or not?

Let's start considering the possibility of offering the option of a renewable marriage license.

by guest blogger Karyn Hall, PhD, co-author of The Power of Validation

In January people evaluate their progress toward goals they made for the past year. Emotionally sensitive people evaluate themselves and wish they were different than they are regardless of what the calendar says. Change can be positive, but sometimes it’s learning acceptance that’s really needed–acceptance of who you are instead of judging yourself as unworthy and living in fear of being rejected.

Some societies don’t understand the concept of judging oneself as unworthy. Our culture tends to be competitive, based on the idea that we have to be “good enough” to succeed, to belong to certain groups, to not be rejected. Many, many years ago being part of a group was necessary for survival. Belonging is still a basic need for everyone.

While oxytocin, the "hormone of love," makes mothers more nurturing & people more giving, could it also fuel intolerance & discrimination? Susan Kuchinskas, author of The Chemistry of Connection, participates in a lively roundtable discussion about it. Listen to it here:

by guest blogger Elliot Cohen, PhD, author of The Dutiful Worrier

It is often said that love is a feeling. Since feelings are subjective, this makes it very difficult to describe love let alone determine how much someone loves another person. However, I want to take a different approach. Love, I will show, is not merely a feeling. Rather it is an activity. Moreover, this activity involves skill-building. Thus you can work at cultivating your love for another. You can get better (or worse) at loving someone. It is also possible to rank how well you are doing at loving someone. In fact, I will provide a "love inventory" that will help you to determine just how good you (or your significant others) really are at loving.

"To love," said Stendhal, "is to derive pleasure from seeing, touching, and feeling through all one's senses and as closely as possible, a lovable person who loves us." This is the popular view of what love is--a deep, all-pervasive positive feeling toward another person. Indeed, it is such a view of love that leads many of us to ask questions like these: "Is this feeling that I have really love?" "Yes I feel comfortable with him (her), but is this love?" "I thought falling in love would feel like fireworks going off, and this doesn't." "We have great sex but I am just not sure if it's love."

by guest blogger Michelle May, MD, author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat with Diabetes

The response to Paula Deen's revelation that she has Type 2 diabetes highlights the false "either-or" dilemma that plagues our culture's approach to eating (and most other things): good or bad, right or wrong, all or nothing.

Paula Deen's popular brand was based on her audacious use of ingredients that are "evil" in this dichotomous view of healthy eating. Viewers watched in fascination and vicarious enjoyment as this sweet but naughty woman unabashedly broke "the rules." Now some of her critics are angry that she hasn't fallen to her knees, begged our forgiveness, and sworn off butter and sugar forever to pay penance and set an example for all the other sinners she led astray.

This all or nothing thinking has characterized yo-yo dieting for decades. At first, dieters are highly motivated to adhere to a strict diet of "good" food. Eventually, feelings of deprivation set in, leading to preoccupation and cravings for "bad" food, increasing sensitivity to temptations, giving in, guilt and consequently, overeating. I call this predictable pattern the eat repent repeat cycle.

by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC, author of The Anger Workbook for Teens

Do you counsel parents who are at their wit's end with a child who throws tantrums, destroys things, or is defiant? If so, here's some information for parents that can help.

Children are constantly soaking in what's going on around them. Studies are showing that even when parents don't think that their kids listen, they do. Parents are one of the strongest influences in a child's life. They set the bar. So be sure that parents are modeling appropriate anger management skills. Besides being the model of behavior, parents should teach children specific skills to manage anger.

by guest blogger Randi Gunther, PhD, author of Relationship Saboteurs and When Love Stumbles

The media hype about older women seeking out young men for sexual contact has about worn me down. As a relationship therapist for four decades, I have certainly defended many unfairly labeled "dirty old men," who were just guys who fell in love with younger women for their beauty, energy, and potential for having children. Many of my older male patients have wanted to start families again and have created great second marriages.

Now I have a whole new group of valuable people to defend. In the past several years, I've had the pleasure of working with older women in relationships with often much younger men. They are not the "older women who frequent clubs to score sexually with younger men," as the new, and unfair definition is of "Cougars." They are quality, mature women who have been actively sought after by younger men for long-term, committed relationships. Yes, sex is an important part of their relationship, but there is so much more.

Michelle Skeen, PsyD, introduces her new book, The Critical Partner, which uses Schema Theory as a framework for learning new things about yourself and your partner. Check it out:

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Jenny Rogojanski, MA

Changing behavior can be extremely challenging for clients, and finding ways to reinforce progress between sessions can be critical for successful therapy. In particular, the client's environment, culture, or social context may act as a barrier to making changes outside of the therapy session. One strategy that may be helpful for overcoming this is to include a supportive family member or close friend as a "helper" who can motivate the client to make changes between sessions. At times, a client's partner may not support the client's efforts to change, which can interfere with progress. In these cases, it is particularly important to get the client's partner on board.

by guest blogger Olga Trujillo, author of The Sum of My Parts

My father, or Popi, as I called him when I was a child, did not speak English, only Spanish. My mother (Mame) also spoke Spanish as her first language, but she could speak English, too--even though she had a strong accent. My brothers and I learned Spanish first and only later learned English in school. We grew up in a traditional Latino home - well, sort of. We spoke only Spanish at home, ate foods that reflected my mother's Caribbean roots, believed in God, went to Catholic Church every Sunday, and our earliest teachers were the nuns of our local Catholic School.

My parents taught us about familia ("family"). According to my father, only one thing was more important than familia, and that was God. It wasn't until much later in my life that I noticed that my dad didn't really have any family besides us, really.

by guest blogger Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP, co-author of Healing Together

No one just shows up for a good relationship and relationships don’t just get better because time passes. It is what we do during that time that helps heal and enhance our relationships. Over the last few years I have written many blogs for couples. Here are six simple resolutions drawn from them that many have found enhance the bond they share with their partner.

by guest blogger Elisha Goldstein, PhD, author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

Here’s what I’m thinking about when starting this next year of 2012:

"May we all recognize in this New Year that the moments of our lives are rare and precious. Open to them, Bask in them, We are alive."

The reality is we often hold things that are rare in our world to be precious. These rare things are held to a high value, whether it’s gold, an unbroken sand dollar on a beach, or the short time that a baby is a baby before growing up.

If you peel the lens back for a moment you can see our lives in this very same way. We’re a blip in time in relation to the life of this planet we stand on and this Universe we live in. All the moments of our lives are rare and precious and it’s incredibly important to bring that awareness back to our lives.