The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships

Author, artist, and clinical psychologist Robert W. Firestone and collaborator Joyce Cattlet dig deep into the psychology of destructive behavior—both its source and how it manifests itself in personal relationships between men, women, couples, and families, and in the social arena.

They posit that if we can understand the source of aggressiveness and learn to cope with the urges it impels, we can better rear future generations and improve mental health practices in general. This position offers a hope of altering what many people consider to be humankinds’s basically unethical nature.

Robert W. Firestone is a clinical psychologist, author and artist. Dr. Firestone was in private practice of psychotherapy from 1957 to 1979. In 1979, he joined the Glendon Association as its consulting theorist. Dr. Firestone’s major publications include The Fantasy Bond, Compassionate Child-Rearing, and Fear of Intimacy. His studies of negative thought processes led to the development of an innovative therapeutic methodology described in, among other titles, The Wisdom of Psychotherapy and Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships. In collaboration with his daughter, Dr. Lisa Firestone, he developed three assessment instruments: The Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts [FAST], The Firestone Assessment of Suicide Intent [FASI] and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts [FAVT], for adolescents and adults, soon to be published (2008) by the Psychological Assessment Resources [PAR].

Joyce Cattlett author/ lecturer, is the co-author of, amont others, Fear of Intimacy, The Wisdom of Psychotherapy and Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships. She has collaborated with Dr. Robert Firestone in writing twenty-five professional articles and eleven books. Since 1982, she has lectured on child abuse prevention and couple relations. She has co-produced forty video productions for the Glendon Association in the areas of parent-child relations, suicide, couple relations, and Voice Therapy and she developed and trained instructors in the Compassionate Child-Rearing Parent Education Program throughout the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. She is a member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and a frequent presenter on the topic of the critical inner voice and its implications for self-destructive behavior on an individual’s interpersonal relationships.