[.ca] Getting The Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. 11 CDs (ISBN 1427202400)

From Amazon.com:
When Harville Hendrix writes about relationships, he discusses them not just as an educator and a therapist, but as a man who has himself been through a failed marriage. Hendrix felt the sting of his divorce intensely because he believed it signaled not only his failure as a husband but also his failure as a couples counselor. Investigating why his marriage dissolved led him to start looking into the psychology of love. Marriage, he ultimately discovered, is the "practice of becoming passionate friends." As a result of his research, Hendrix created a therapy he calls Imago Relationship Therapy. In it, he combines what he's learned in a number of disciplines, including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, to name just a few. He expounds upon this approach in Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. His purpose in writing the book, he says, is "to share with you what I have learned about the psychology of love relationships, and to help you transform your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship." Divided into three sections, the book covers "The Unconscious Marriage," which details a marriage in which the remaining desires and behavior of childhood interfere with the current relationship; "The Conscious Marriage," which shows a marriage that fulfils those childhood needs in a positive manner; and a 10-week "course in relationship therapy, " which gives detailed exercises for you and your partner to follow in order to learn how to "replace confrontation and criticism ... with a healing process of mutual growth and support." The text is occasionally dry and technical; however, the information provided is valuable, the case studies are interesting, and the exercises are revealing and helpful. By utilizing his program, Hendrix hopes you too will be able to solve your marital difficulties without the expense of a therapist. --Jenny Brown

Recommended!:
The book is an easy and enjoyable read. I gleaned great number of pearls of wisdom and revealing insights about my marriage, myself and the reasons I do those things that make my spouse irritated. The author presents 16 exercises, which you can do together with your spouse to work on your relationship. They are interesting and practical, blended in a very readable format. Keep in mind however that this is not a quick fix book full of easy answers. In it, Dr. Hendrix introduces the imago model, which he developed as a tool for understanding relationship problems. His approach is quite interesting to read as you will discover the "roots" of some of your marriage problems and will gain greater insight. I found this book valuable and directly applicable to my life. It gives you the tools to understand yourself as well as your partner. From that, you can start resolving long standing problems. It really helps you to get below the surface problems and deal with underlying issues. Near the end you are presented with two couples where everything you have learned is applied to show how situations can go from bad to blissful. Additional bestseller that helped my husband and me to achieve that is scientist Ritz' "Scientifically guaranteed multi-orgasms and ultimate sex". We highly recommend both of them.

A Note from a Villanova University Senior Thesis Group:
Amazon.com Review for Getting the Love You Want Author: Harville Hendrix This review was completed by a group of five college seniors from Villanova University. We spent a semester researching and reviewing best-selling self-help books on the subject of romantic relationships. We evaluated five texts after reviewing academic literature specifically on the topics of commitment, trust, conflict, verbal communication, and intimacy. In order to make you a more informed consumer, we hope to provide you with a review of Getting the Love You Want. The author's intent of this book is to help people improve their romantic relationships. He claims that the book will provide sound insight for dating couples, married couples, heterosexual and homosexual couples. Getting the Love You Want provides people with an understanding of where their difficulties may stem from and includes a section of the book with actual exercises for couples to do over a period of time to improve their relationship. The style of the book is very personable and easy to understand. Hendrix's extensive experience of working with couples and helping people shines through his writing and helps the reader to feel at ease. Hendrix is challenging, yet at the same time understanding. Getting the Love You Want addresses couples who want to work together to improve their relationship. The exercises in the book target both individuals in the relationship, but allow for increased self-understanding and growth as well. We evaluated how the following five topics were approached in the book: Commitment- The advice for couples in revolves around the theme of commitment. Two chapters are devoted to commitment as well as a subheading in another chapter. Ideal commitment is described as "a decision to join together in a journey that will last the rest of their lives." Personal dedication is described as a necessary component of commitment. Trust- Several implications of trust are discussed in the book, but the word trust is briefly mentioned. Hendrix points out that the process of developing trust is a learning experience that allows someone to really get to know their partner. He suggests that we need to get over our self-centered tendencies and deal with personal issues preventing trust. Conflict- This subject is addressed in terms of anger, criticism and arguments. Specific exercises deal with working things out as a couple. Conflict is described as something that is not necessarily bad, but rather expressing anger in a constructive manner can be healthy. Hendrix recommends approaching situations with more acceptance and understanding in order that conflict may be seen in a more productive light. Verbal Communication- This topic is addressed in a very straightforward manner in the book. Hendrix stresses the importance of good communication skills. Couples need to be clear and specific in their communication. The book provides specific step-by-step exercises to enhance communication. Intimacy- The book approaches intimacy in the context of self-disclosure, expression of thought and emotion, listening, providing support, and making positive verbal statements. Hendrix also stresses the importance of sharing one's feelings. This book is best for the subject of verbal communication.(...)

Why marriage works:
Just reading this book gave me great optimism about my marriage and my ability to greatly improve it. His exercises provide explicit and practical steps to take to meet the conflicts and sense of something missing and turn them into relationship and personal growth. The book begins by explaining things you never thought to ask, like 'why was I so attracted to this particular person I married?' He then goes on to describe how the things left unresolved from our childhood experience with our parents become the major themes in the new family created by marriage. The explainations have a common sense feel of the truth being told. From the understanding of how marraage works it becomes easy to see for the first time what creates the tensions and what to do about them. As a marriage therapist Hendrix assumes major problems is your marriage. If your marrage is still in good shape he may seem to overstate the conflicts but the descriptions and cures very much on target and useful.

The thinking couple's guide to marriage:
If you want an intelligent guide to making marriage work (as opposed to some quick fix or gimmicky guide, or, even worse, some retro-marriage guide that's based solely on female self-sacrifice!) then this is the book for you. This book recognizes that when two people seriously commit to working on a marriage, the results can be amazing. I have used this in my work with couples as well as in my own relationship with my partner. It's a first-rate resource.

It takes two:
It is hard to tell others what we want, this book gives practical tips on how to do just that. If couples could only communicate better, so many children would have both parents under the same roof. I recommend this book to anyone who is in a relationship. Also check out Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey for a step-by-step guide to getting more out of life.