MARINA OPPENHEIMER BOOKS AND BLOG

  Anybody who has shared her life with a narcissistic becomes an expert in walking on eggshells. Living with a narcissist is like living with the enemy because we gradually become the container of his anger and his habit of diminishing others; as a result, our self-esteem is shattered. What does it mean to be a narcissist? Besides being grandiose and having a sense of entitlement, narcissists lack empathy and introspection, and consequently always find a way to blame others when things go wrong. It is true that narcissists are not born that way; they become narcissists thanks to the flawed parenting skills of their parents. Being born to a narcissist mother or father who does not try at any time to understand her baby’s needs and only thinks about her expectations has dreadful results. Regardless of how we analyze it, the narcissistic attachment is dysfunctional and has to do with manipulating the child in order to satisfy the needs of the parent. Unfortunately, once we develop a n...

  Una de las consecuencias más negativas del sentimiento de soledad es no ser cuidadoso con los amigos que elegimos. Es tan profundo el temor a sentirnos solos en el mundo que cualquier persona que nos demuestra un dejo de simpatía es bienvenida a nuestra vida. Si bien cuando estamos en pareja no tenemos esa necesidad imperiosa de rodearnos de amigos, cuando la pareja se quiebra puede ocurrir que caigamos en la trampa de atraer a nuestro lado relaciones peligrosas. Bien conocidas son las estafas de mafiosos que utilizan fotos de las plataformas sociales para engañar a mujeres, en general de edad mediana y ávidas de cariño. De acuerdo al FBI el monto de estos fraudes alcanza millones de dólares. Pero no me refiero a estos casos desesperados, sino a situaciones más comunes y cotidianas. Mucha de la gente que nos rodea lleva vidas infelices, existencias sin rumbo definido y acosadas por facturas pendientes. No pocas veces el trabajo que hacen no los satisface y su matrimonio tampoco; ...

  One of the most negative consequences of feeling lonely is not being careful about the friends we choose. The fear of feeling alone in the world is so profound that anyone who shows us some kindness is welcome into our lives. While when we have a partner, we don't feel that urgent need to surround ourselves with companions, when we break-up we risk falling into the trap of attracting dangerous relationships alongside us. Well known are the scams with photos of social platforms to defraud women, generally middle-aged and desperate for being loved again. According to the FBI, the amount of these frauds reaches millions of dollars. But I'm not talking here about these desperate cases, but of more common and close to home situations. Many of the people around us lead unhappy lives, aimlessly defined existences harassed by unfinished businesses. Not infrequently the work they do doesn't satisfy them, and neither does their marriage; others have serious problems with their chil...

 

Although I was born a Catholic, I don’t believe in institutionalized religion. I agree with Krishnamurti when he says that “ Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.” In other words, each one of us has to create his/her own view of the world and transcendence. A gigantic task, no doubt about it; but as luck would have it, life gives us a hand in this endeavor. In my case I realized that, without the assistance of a guardian angel, some of my life events would have ended very differently. It was the year 1976. My parents had gone to spend the summer at a house they had built on the Argentine coast. I was in Buenos Aires and had not planned to go anywhere because I had just started a new job. Suddenly, for no reason, I felt the need to go visit my parents; on Friday afternoon I asked my boyfriend to be my copilot. On Saturday morni...

  This book includes eight sessions with information and activirties. It is a fantastic tool for clinicians who run groups for severely depressed patients. 

    Friedrich Nietzsche once stated that  without music life would be a mistake. I  have    to admit  that it took me a while  to understand the real meaning of his quote. Until one day by pure chance I listened to the music of a Mexican composer, Ernesto Cortazar. Although I have always been a fan of classical music, especially Mozart, alone in my house during the COVID outbreak for some reason Mozart was not what I longed to listen to. Perhaps the life stage I am going through needed something different, more in tune with who I had been and who I was. Being divorced and alone due to social distancing, I needed to reconnect to the beginnings of my journey; to that time of my life before all the tests and the trials. The first day I listened to Cortazar I felt like he had composed his music just for me: it spoke to me of the country I had left behind when I was still young, it reminded me of my youth, of my family of origin and of what my life had...