Geraldine K. Piorkowski

Geraldine K. Piorkowski, Ph. D. was Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also served as Interim Dean of Students and Director of the Counseling Center. Prior to her arrival at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she was Chair of the Psychology Dept. at Roosevelt University, Chicago, and before that, Director of their Counseling Service. She was in private practice for many years, working with both individuals and couples, and has been quoted regularly in national magazines and newspapers.

Two of Dr. Piorkowski's books deal with romantic love and how elusive it is in American society. The first book, "Too Close for Comfort: Exploring the Risks of Intimacy," is an examination of the dangers of romantic love, that is, the factors responsible for the profound disappointment and sense of betrayal experienced by many young people who fall in love. The second book, "Adult Children of Divorce: Confused Love Seekers," looks at the reasons why adults who grew up in divorced families have so much difficulty with romantic love themselves and why they are twice as likely to get divorced as adults who grew up in intact families. Her third book, "Beyond Pipe Dreams and Platitudes: Insights on Love, Luck, and Narcissism from a Longtime Psychologist," is a book of 8 essays that deals with what she learned working for over 50 years with people from different cultures and walks of life. In the book, she challenges many ideas popular in today's culture, maintaing that positive thinking is not always helpful, that not all narcissism is unhealthy, that romantic love is mainly an illusion at first, and that anger can be productive under certain conditions. She also asserts that vulnerability is very appealing in friendship and romantic love, that we have less control over life than we would like to believe, and that luck or chance plays a more significant role in our achievements than is desired. Her latest book, "Love, Luck, and Narcissism: When Popular Culture Gets It Wrong," published in 2026, is a second edition of "Beyond Pipe Dreams and Platitudes" with a new title and greater clarity.