Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-319) and index.
Contents
Three Sides to Every Story -- The Anatomy of an Argument -- "You're Wrong!": Relationship Problems as Faults -- "How Can You Be That Way?": Relationship Problems as Incompatibilities -- "Can I Give to You Without Losing Me?": Incompatibilities over Love and Power -- "I Do but I Don't": Confusing Incompatibilities -- "You Know How to Hurt Me": Relationship Problems as Vulnerabilities -- A Cure Worse Than the Disease: Relationship Problems as Solutions -- From Argument to Acceptance -- The Delicate Balance: Acceptance and Change -- A Story of Our Own: Acceptance through Understanding -- Walking in Your Partner's Shoes: Acceptance through Compassion -- Getting Some Perspective on the Conflict: Acceptance through Tolerant Distance -- Deliberate Change through Acceptance -- The Dilemmas of Deliberate Change -- How Good Advice Can Be Bad for Your Relationship: Accepting the Foibles of Rules -- Why a New Approach Can Lead to the Same Old Thing: Using Your Own Story to Make Genuine Change -- Lost Battles Can Win the War: How Change and Intimacy Can Emerge from Defeat -- When Acceptance Is Not Enough -- "Don't Do That to Me!": Violence, Verbal Abuse, and Infidelity -- Call in the Professionals!: Couple and Individual Therapy.
Summary
This practical guide offers new solutions for couples frustrated by continual attempts to make each other change. In their decades of clinical practice and research in the field of couple therapy. Drs. Andrew Christensen and Neil S. Jacobson developed a therapeutic approach for couples based on one simple truth: no matter how much two people love each other, their differences will eventually cause conflict. Filled with thought-provoking exercises and real-life examples, the book is designed to help you understand the conflicts you have with your partner, learn why you may have the same fights again and again, and keep small incompatibilities from causing big problems.