I didn’t buy the way the abuser talks or thinks. Abusers do not think of themselves as control freaks. They wouldn’t use the word “control”, ever, yet here, time and again the abuser mentions that they want to control the other person. A lot of the time, the dialogue and internal monologues of the abuser sound like they were lifted out of a psych journal that’s explaining what goes on in an abuser’s mind. pretty much i listened to this book and just felt grateful for my current romantic partner cuz i was like 'damn homeboy legit already does almost all of the things that terry is recommending' and i'm the one that needs to learn a few things from this teeheeeeeee whoops

Every time he slipped up, Dan reminded himself, It’s not you that’s bad, it’s your behavior. That’s true for your adaptive strategies too, by the way: you’re not a bad person, you’re just behaving badly. YEARS AGO: They're forced to share a ride home from college and by the end of it a friendship is formed. And a pact: every year, one vacation together. I found this book excellent for encouraging having compassion toward self and others while also setting healthy boundaries. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding and overcoming their triggers and improving their relationships with romantic partners, as well as with coworkers, family, and friends. Yeah, I’m still schizo. Damn! Debbie the Thrill Seeker gives this book a 5. Debbie the Editor and Killjoy gives it a 2. The thrill, though super intense and fantastic, was short-lived, and the bad stuff was steady and long, so Plain Old Debbie gives it 3 stars. Maybe because she insists on justifying her characters so much. Everything they do is agonized over and defended.Next, he worked on rewiring his neural pathways with the help of the respect test. Whenever he had a negative thought, he tried to ask himself if it failed to meet the basic standards of respect. A thought like, I’ll just tell Julia the store was out of milk instead of admitting I forgot to buy it doesn’t demonstrate basic respect toward Julia. A thought like, It’s pathetic the way I’m always lying and making excuses doesn’t demonstrate basic respect to Dan himself. One last complaint. Alice, so utterly perfect in physical beauty and intelligence and wholesomeness blah blah blah. Do ya think if she were 5'2", 180 and had hairy moles on her ass and nose Paul would've fallen so desperately in love with her? Um, doubtful. Although I have already read a lot about trauma, I found the author’s discussion of relational trauma quite helpful, and I particularly appreciated his trauma grid. One of my favorite quotes from the book is when the author states, “I believe there’s no such thing as overreacting; it’s just that what someone is reacting to may no longer be what’s in front of them.”

This storyline revolves around a dating agency that matches people together but they have to go on dates where they can’t see one another. This allows the couple to get to know one another based on who they are and not their looks. I read this because it got a rave review in the New York Times and because it has a foreword by Bruce Springsteen, of all people. Springsteen basically says that years ago, he was one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but he wasn't happy in his life or relationships, and therapy with Terrence Real helped him and his family tremendously. Bruce Springsteen is a national treasure and deserves to be happy, so I figured the book was worth a try. And I made a pact with her. If we were still unmarried at thirty, we’d put ourselves out there fully. Grace is 30 years old and her life revolves around her art studio which is really struggling. She also has a twin sister who happens to work for Sight Unseen. The sisters made a promise years ago that if they reached 30 and didn’t weren’t in a relationship that they would start to focus on finding their true love. So, Hope talks Grace into letting her put her information into the Sight Unseen dating agency to find her a match.I didn't love the beginning, the characters were way too messed up and "in their heads". I think Brashares was trying to prove that she could write for adults and therefore got a bit heavy into some strange psychology that wasn't always enjoyable to wade through. The idea of love is always easier than the practice of it.’ Brashares states this towards the end of her story, and by the time she does so, it’s almost unnecessary. The entire novel is a beautiful, lyrical testament to the complexities of all sorts of love, yet never is the reader made to feel manipulated nor pandered to. Instead, the characters, their thoughts, and their relationships are built up and described so lovingly, that the book and its subject matter become one and the same: like the summer it describes, this novel is at once beautiful and fleeting. It’s impossible to put down, but at the same time you’ll want to cling to it, to draw it out and not let it end. After you do, you’ll promise yourself you won’t forget the way it made you feel, even though you know that (unfortunately) you will, all too soon. I will soon turn 29 and I haven’t read the sisterhood series by Ann Brashares yet, I recently read The Last summer (of you and me) and I loved it (literally couldn’t put it down). Between You and Me is a book about a couple and their outwardly perfect lives. Behind closed doors, however, things are very different. Charlie and Sal meet at university, settle in together and marry. Cut to a few years later and they now have a little girl, Maggie.

It’s important to remember that your adaptive child isn’t bad. They’re an important part of you. But, like any child, they need to be parented. The next time you feel your adaptive child take over, try not to let them determine your actions. Try, instead, to listen to what they’re telling you.

A breath-taking suspense full of twists and turns – if you think you know how this ends, think again…

I do wish someone would come along and do a book integrating RLT, EFT, IFST, and Hakomi/Gestalt/Somatic Experiencing. Plus whatever David Wexler is. Because each time you read one of these books you always have to go through the basics again. As the first book in a new matchmaking series, YOU AND ME, BABY is an intriguing departure from the usual matchmaking books. Sight Unseen is a dating agency with matches meeting in the dark until five dates have passed. That’s part of the picture. But what about all those toxic emotional reactions that come into play when you and your partner disagree? That, too, has a lot to do with your relationships with others. You learned your stress reactions – whether they’re to yell, lie, or retreat into silence — in the context of your earliest relationships. For most of us, that means we absorbed the stress responses that were modeled by our families, and especially by our parents.

This details an abusive relationship and was reminiscent of Behind Closed Doors to me with a villain that made my skin crawl. Sal and Charlie are married and Sal stays at home with their daughter, Maggie while Charlie is a lawyer. Charlie is a monster and a controlling bully and has no respect for Sal and doesn’t think that staying at home with a child is worthwhile, however insists that Sal does it anyway. That’s just a taste of the type of horrid person Charlie is. Despite my thoughts about the ending, it's hard to believe this is a debut novel. It's that well-written. I can't wait to see what the author comes up with next. The book itself is comprehensive, looking at the impacts of trauma on relationship styles. (Not that different from EFT, as far as I can tell, actually). He paints "trauma" with a broad brush, covering physical and verbal abuse, neglect, parentification of children, systemic racism, patriarchy, moral injury (when you yourself injure others and carry the scars of that violation as well), and a few other things that aren't coming to mind at the moment, because he is interested in what the underlying reasons for our communications strategies are. He refers to the parts of damaged early as "the adaptive child," and to the person we are now, or could be, as the "wise adult." As with Internal Family Systems Therapy, the idea is to let the child know that whatever may have been true in childhood, the adult has the reins now and can handle the situation. ISFT seems more comprehensive to me--looking at not just the child, but the parts of the child--protector, sentry, hider, etc. But a warning to those who like to be completely blindsided---don't read another single review for this book until after you've read it!!*****

Retailers:

And that essential mistake that mankind [sic] has enshrined is the fiction of an independent self—a self over all, over nature, over groups that we marginalize, over the partners and children we crazily try to control, over the neighbors with whom we compete, over the planet we disrespect. That is our potentially fatal error. We will awaken, or we will hand down misery for generations. We will learn, or we will destroy. This world does not belong to us. We belong to one another… I am quite angry. I say to Sal, 'Sal, I am quite angry at being in such a crappy book.' Sal just looks at me with Sal's tired eyes.