From Impasse to Intimacy Understanding Unconscious Needs Can Transform Relationships

by Shaddock, David

• ISBN13: 9780765701633
• ISBN10: 0765701634
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-04-01
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.

Summary

An experienced couples counselor identifies the unconscious factors that influence the way we feel and behave in intimate relationships--the invisible needs that create and sustain our dysfunctional patterns of relating. Whereas the conventional focus on changing our marital scripts bypasses excavation of their roots in our deepest childhood fears--of abandonment, intrusion, shame--David Shaddock weaves contemporary thinking about the individual into the family systems approach to therapy. Effortlessly, and with gentle authority, he introduces concepts that professional and popular readers alike can adopt to begin to decode symbolic issues and, in turn, generate the understanding that builds empathy between partners.

Author Biography

David Shaddock, M.A., M.F.C.C., is on the faculty of the Graduate School for Transpersonal Psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California, Mr. Shaddock is in private practice in Oakland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
A Journey to Living Unison	1	(10)
I Origins of the Invisible Marriage	11	(60)
1. Why Love Is Blind	11	(16)
2. Growing Up Wounded: Childhood Pain and the Origin of the Invisible Marriage	27	(22)
3. Patterns of Protection	49	(22)
II Visible Problems, Invisible Roots	71	(92)
4. Anger and Escalation	71	(18)
5. Pursuit and Avoidance	89	(20)
6. Emotional Distance	109	(16)
7. Sex and Intimacy	125	(18)
8. Money, Housework, and In-Laws	143	(20)
III Changing the Script	163	(64)
9. Couples in Crisis: When the Script Breaks Down	163	(20)
10. Changing the Script	183	(22)
11. Creating the Ties That Heal	205	(22)
Bibliography	227	(4)
Suggested Readings	231	(2)
Index	233