When One Partner Is Willing and the Other Is Not - Softcover

Set aside your conception of resistance as a purely negative, inhibiting force in therapy! With When One Partner Is Willing and the Other Is Not you can learn innovative techniques for tapping into the energy of resistance to use it in positive ways. With the helpful hints offered in this one-of-a-kind volume, you can learn to use the energy of resistance in the processes of joining, emphasizing the positive, educating, and bringing the reluctant client into therapy. This will help you and your clients with primary intimacy issues such as territoriality, symbiotic attunement, negative role relationships, and differences in rules, customs, and traditions to the achievement of stronger, more flexible, and happier relationships.

If you find it difficult to teach your clients conflict-resolution skills, When One Partner Is Willing and the Other Is Not can guide you through important steps that promote reconciliation, tolerance, and communication between partners. On one level, you can help couples learn negotiation, problem-solving, and empathy-building skills. On another, you can help them understand that conflicts can be approached as opportunities for learning and growth. As you learn basic causes of conflict and tension in partnerships and effective ways for helping couples handle them, you will also learn about:

• power struggles in marriage
• the gendered misrecognition of dependency in couples
• family systems therapy with violent couples
• resistance as a product of individual fears and personality
• a model for the treatment of male batterers and their partners
• uneven subjective perceptions among couples in therapy
  
  When One Partner Is Willing and the Other Is Not will help therapists show their clients that self-assertion in marriage can be used to confront conflicts in effective ways. This book offers approaches and insight that can be used not only in the therapeutic setting, but also at home. If your relationship is in jeopardy, this sensitive guidebook might help you understand the underlying nature of your problems and target the techniques that can help you explore and relieve them.