Love Focused

In Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy: The Dynamics of Emotion, Love, and Power, authors Leslie S. Greenberg and Rhonda N. Goldman explore the foundations of emotionally focused therapy for couples. They expand its framework to focus more intently on the development of the self and the relationship system through the promotion of self-soothing and other-soothing; to deal with unmet needs both from the client's adulthood and childhood; and to work more explicitly with emotions, specifically fear, anxiety, shame, power, joy, and love. The authors discuss the affect regulation involved in three major motivational systems central to couples therapy - attachment, identity, and attraction and clarify emotions and motivations in the dominance dimension of couples' interactions.Written with practitioners and graduate students in mind, the authors use a rich variety of case material to demonstrate how working with emotions can facilitate change in couples and, by extension, in all situations where people may be in emotional conflict with others. Greenberg and Goldman provide the tools needed to identify specific emotions and show the reader how to work with them to resolve conflict and promote bonding in couples therapy.

If you've ever seen your teenage crush ten years later, and he turns out to be a complete jerk, then you know how Molly Ward feels. The last time she saw Noah Griffin was the regrettable day that she decided to climb into his bedroom window and turn her unrequited crush into something more. That day was bad enough, but things are about to get worse. Noah has become one of the best football players in the country, and he's just landed on Molly's front step. As a new addition to the Washington Wolves roster, Noah's presence is the key to Molly's promotion in the front office. The problem is, Noah wants nothing to do with Molly, and his surly attitude is making her job very difficult. But he's got another thing coming if he thinks Molly will be intimidated by one grumpy football player, no matter how much he hates being around her. Once these two go head to head, their mutual dislike explodes into undeniable chemistry. But with what they have at stake, they just might detonate everything else along with it.

Following Braced, which had three starred reviews, comes a story of a girl caught between her love of chess and her ADHD. Clea can't control her thoughts. She knows she has to do her homework . . . but she gets distracted. She knows she can't just say whatever thought comes into her head . . . but sometimes she can't help herself. She know she needs to focus . . . but how can she do that when the people around her are always chewing gum loudly or making other annoying noises?It's starting to be a problem-not just in school, but when Clea's playing chess or just hanging out with her best friend. Other kids are starting to notice. When Clea fails one too many tests, her parents take her to be tested, and she finds out that she has ADHD, which means her attention is all over the place instead of where it needs to be.Clea knows life can't continue the way it's been going. She's just not sure how you can fix a problem that's all in your head. But that's what she's going to have to do, to find a way to focus. In a starred review, called Alyson Gerber's first novel, , "a masterfully constructed and highly empathetic debut about a different kind ofacceptance." With , she explores even further how, when life gives you a challenge, the best way to face it is with an open mind, an open heart, and the open support of the people around you.

Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American Couples: Love Heals is an essential guide that integrates emotionally focused therapy (EFT) with cultural humility. It provides a pathbreaking, evidence-based model of couples work that reinforces the bond between partners in the face of race-based distress. Guillory explores and brings a deep understanding of the legacy of racial trauma, and the cultural strengths of African American couples by using real-life case studies. The chapters in the book focus on several key clinical issues in the field, such as communication problems, anxiety, infidelity, depression, and porn. Each case study is enhanced by a consultation with EFT master therapist Sue Johnson. The book is an essential text for students and mental health professionals looking to provide culturally competent therapeutic interventions. It will also appeal to psychologists, mental health workers, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and religious leaders.

Complete with exercises, reflections, and specially selected tasks, this workbook is written for those suffering from heartbreak (and their therapists) to support them in navigating and managing the pain of breakups. The authors help people in this position learn from their experiences, grow stronger from their suffering, and create healthy and fulfilling relationships. Kathryn D. Rheem and Clare Rosoman bring their experiences as relationship therapists and devotees of attachment science to offer informed support and encouragement to the broken hearted by providing practical strategies to help readers make sense of and grow from their experiences. Mirroring the therapy process, the book is structured so that readers actively participate in their own healing process with activities that guide their journey session by session. Chapters address attachment strategies, facing fear, riding waves of anger, processing grief and loss, forgiveness, and trusting yourself again. This book will help the reader create a future in which they can know and accept themselves as the perfectly imperfect human they are and create secure bonds with the special people in their life. This workbook is for people who have experienced the loss of a close relationship and are struggling to heal and move forward in their lives, as well as therapists assisting clients in their recovery from relationship loss.

The second edition of this essential and newly updated workbook is intended for use with couples who want to enhance their emotional connection or overcome their relationship distress. It closely follows the course of EFT treatment and allows clinicians to easily integrate guided reading, reflection, and discussion into the therapeutic process. Incorporating new developments in EFT and decades of research in the field of attachment, Veronica Kallos-Lilly and Jennifer Fitzgerald include chapters that explore concepts such as attachment bonds, the three cycles of relationship distress, how to make sense of emotions, relationship hurts and more. The workbook follows the familiar and accessible format of the first edition, Read, Reflect, and Discuss, and weaves fresh, illustrative examples throughout, with updated content considering the impact of gender, culture, and sexual orientation on relationship dynamics. Added reflections on these topics and an expanded section on sexuality dispels constraining popular myths and frees partners up to express themselves more openly. This book is essential reading for partners looking for helpful steps to improve the quality of their romantic relationships as well as marriage and family therapists, couple therapists and clinicians training in EFT to use with their clients.

By viewing romantic love as an attachment bond, Clare Rosoman incorporates emotionally focused therapy (EFT) and attachment theory to provide evidence-based tools in navigating close relationships and managing the pain of relationship loss. Beginning with a foreword from Veronica Kallos-Lilly, this book firstly explores how attachment themes show up in relationship dynamics, creating either security or insecurity, before looking at how relationships go wrong. Chapters then focus on creating a new narrative for this loss of connection, helping readers learn about their own attachment strategies and how to work through pain, anger, and grief. The last part focuses on helping readers learn how to forgive, let go, build security within themselves, and implement these strategies in future relationships. Addressing all forms of relationships, including family and friendship losses, LGBTQ+ couples, and references to cultural humility, this accessible and empathetic guide is written for both therapists and their clients to help them learn from their experiences and build the ability to be a resource for themselves. It is essential reading for EFT therapists as well as couple, marriage, and family therapists.

Everett L. Worthington Jr. offers a comprehensive manual for assisting couples over common rough spots and through serious problems in a manner that is compassionate, effective and brief.

Integrating the latest in attachment theory and research into the use of EMDR. Much has been written about trauma and neglect and the damage they do to the developing brain. But little has been written or researched about the potential to heal these attachment wounds and address the damage sustained from neglect or poor parenting in early childhood. This book presents a therapy that focuses on precisely these areas. Laurel Parnell, leader and innovator in the field of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), offers us a way to embrace two often separate worlds of knowing: the science of early attachment relationships and the practice of healing within an EMDR framework. This beautifully written and clinically practical book combines attachment theory, one of the most dynamic theoretical areas in psychotherapy today, with EMDR to teach therapists a new way of healing clients with relational trauma and attachment deficits. Readers will find science-based ideas about how our early relationships shape the way the mind and brain develop from our young years into our adult lives. Our connections with caregivers induce neural circuit firings that persist throughout our lives, shaping how we think, feel, remember, and behave. When we are lucky enough to have secure attachment experiences in which we feel seen, safe, soothed, and secure—the “four S’s of attachment” that serve as the foundation for a healthy mind—these relational experiences stimulate the neuronal activation and growth of the integrative fibers of the brain. EMDR is a powerful tool for catalyzing integration in an individual across several domains, including memory, narrative, state, and vertical and bilateral integration. In Laurel Parnell’s attachment-based modifications of the EMDR approach, the structural foundations of this integrative framework are adapted to further catalyze integration for individuals who have experienced non-secure attachment and developmental trauma. The book is divided into four parts. Part I lays the groundwork and outlines the five basic principles that guide and define the work. Part II provides information about attachment-repair resources available to clinicians. This section can be used by therapists who are not trained in EMDR. Part III teaches therapists how to use EMDR specifically with an attachment-repair orientation, including client preparation, target development, modifications of the standard EMDR protocol, desensitization, and using interweaves. Case material is used throughout. Part IV includes the presentation of three cases from different EMDR therapists who used attachment-focused EMDR with their clients. These cases illustrate what was discussed in the previous chapters and allow the reader to observe the theoretical concepts put into clinical practice—giving the history and background of the clients, actual EMDR sessions, attachment-repair interventions within these sessions and the rationale for them, and information about the effects of the interventions and the course of treatment.