Synopses & Reviews
"What the heck is my partner thinking?" is a common refrain in romantic relationships, and with good reason. Every person is wired for love differently, with different habits, needs, and reactions to conflict. The good news is that most people's minds work in predictable ways and respond well to security, attachment, and rituals, making it possible to actually neurologically prime the brain for greater love and fewer conflicts.
Wired for Love is a complete insiders guide to understanding your partners brain and enjoying a romantic relationship built on love and trust. Synthesizing research findings on how and why love lasts drawn from neuroscience, attachment theory, and emotion regulation, this book presents ten guiding principles that can improve any relationship.
Strengthen your relationship by:
- Creating and maintaining a safe couple bubble”
- Using morning and evening rituals to stay connected
- Learning to fight so that nobody loses
- Becoming the expert on what makes your partner feel loved
By learning to use simple gestures and words, readers can learn to put out emotional fires and help their partners feel more safe and secure. The no-fault view of conflict in this book encourages readers to move past a "warring brain" mentality and toward a more cooperative "loving brain" understanding of the relationship. This book is essential reading for couples and others interested in understanding the complex dynamics at work behind love and trust in intimate relationships.
While theres no doubt that love is an inexact science, if you can discover how you and your partner are wired differently, you can overcome your differences to create a lasting intimate connection.
Review
Ive always been fascinated by attachment theory, which does a wonderful job of explaining how pivotal early events color all of life. Leslie Becker-Phelps helps us understand how anxious attachment plays itself out in our current relationshipsand what we do can to heal from that substantial early wound. Highly recommended!”
Eric Maisel, PhD, author of Rethinking Depression and The Van Gogh Blues Insecure in Love is engaging, practical, and comprehensive all at the same time. It takes the latest theories of love and provides a useful roadmap for why couples struggle to maintain closeness. Becker-Phelps gets to the heart of the challenge and describes what individuals need to address about themselves, as well as what couples can work on together, in order to recreate a meaningful connection between two people.”
Daniel Goldberg, PhD, director at the New Jersey Couples Training Program in the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey
Review
Drawing on the latest scientific research but written in an entertaining and accessible manner, this book will help you understand why you're insecure in your relationships. It will also help you heal, so that you can have healthier relationships with others, and perhaps more importantly, with yourself.”
Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion and associate professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas
Review
This is a wonderfully user-friendly handbook on healthy relating, both with others and with ourselves. Leslie Becker-Phelps mentors us in such a clearand encouragingway. She shows us how we can open ourselves to others while tending our own boundaries so that real love can happen.”
David Richo, author of How to Be an Adult in Love
Review
Insecure in Love provides a step-by-step guide for overcoming the psychological hurdles that prevent so many people from finding and creating lasting and satisfying relationships. Becker-Phelps provides easy-to-use assessment tools and exercises that will help readers identify faulty ways of thinking and behaving, understand their childhood context, increase their self-compassion, and form loving and secure attachments going forward.”
Guy Winch, PhD, author of Emotional First Aid and The Squeaky Wheel
Review
A wonderfully readable synthesis of attachment theory, mindfulness, and cutting-edge approaches to developing self-awareness. This is illustrated throughout with practical advice and vivid stories told by a wise and caring therapist, who is a recognized expert on cultivating successful relationships.”
Diane Handlin, PhD, founder and executive director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Center, NJ
Review
Leslie Becker-Phelps explains how early attachments can create obstacles to healthy and secure connections in adult romantic relationships.
Insecure in Love provides the self-knowledge and the tools necessary to overcome these obstacles and get you closer to feeling secure, happy, and loved in your relationships. Highly recommended for anyone who feels anxious and insecure in a relationship.”
Michelle Skeen, PsyD, author of The Critical Partner and host of Relationships 2.0 on KCAA 1050-AM
Review
If youre single, youll discover how to choose a partner who is truly available for a connected, supportive, nurturing relationshipsomeone who accepts and loves you for you. If youre in a relationship, you will gain insight into your partners behavior and motivation and discover how to create a loving connection in which you both feel truly valued and cared for.
Filled with relevant, real-life examples and powerful exercises, Insecure in Love will help you leave your self-criticism and sabotaging behaviors behind and develop true self-compassion. No matter how much youve struggled in the past, you will finally understand how to create happy, healthy relationships and experience true, lasting love.”
Mali Apple and Joe Dunn, authors of The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships
Review
It is rare that an author can take such a deep and meaningful subject and present it in a helpful, caring, and hopeful manner. Those who are suffering from anxiety disorders that have undermined past relationships will find her suggestions and exercises easy to understand and potentially very successful.”
Randi Gunther, PhD, author of Relationship Saboteurs
Review
“This book is grounded in the latest brain science, as well as being wonderfully friendly, encouraging, and practical. It shows readers how to stay out of dead-end conflicts and instead light up the neural circuits of empathy, skillful communication, and love. A marvelous resource.”
—Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha's Brain
Review
“I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it that I can use as a therapist. Stan Tatkin is a great innovator. This book is a must for every couples’ therapist’s library.”
—John Gottman, author of The Science of Trust
Review
“If you feel lost, confused or alone in your relationship, get this book right now. You will finally make sense out of chaos and pain. This is your map to go from frustration and insecurity to realize the potential of why you initially got together. Stan Tatkin’s insightful book will teach you to work as a team to make your relationship journey safe, engaging, and deeply satisfying.”
—Peter Pearson, PhD, couples therapy specialist and cofounder of The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA
Review
“Stan Tatkin shows how our couple relationships would look if we took seriously what attachment theory and neuroscience research has taught us.”
—Dan Wile, author of After the Honeymoon
Review
“Wired for Love challenges partners to experience their relationship in a totally new way. Partners will learn how to engage positively as a couple to help each other feel safe and secure by following the relationship exercises suggested in this exciting new book. In clear, concise language, Tatkin describes the ways that partners can understand and become experts on one another. He suggests building a “couple bubble” wherein each partner is the most important person in the other’s life, the one individual on whom the partner can always count.”
—Marion F. Solomon, director of clinical training at Lifespan Learning Institute and author of Narcissism and Intimacy, Lean on Me, and other books
Review
“Read this book to discover a multitude of new ways to enliven your relationship and end needless conflicts. Stan Tatkin is one of the most innovative thinkers in the couples relationship world today. It's impossible to read this book without learning new patterns to enhance your love.”
—Ellyn Bader, PhD, cocreator of the developmental model of couples therapy, codirector of The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA, and author of Tell Me No Lies and In Quest of the Mythical Mate
Review
“Reading Stan Tatkin’s book makes you want to be in therapy with him. With intense and fearless clarity, he takes you into the trenches of the combative human brain and shows you how to make love, not war.”
—Esther Perel, LMFT, author of Mating in Captivity
Synopsis
Almost everyone has felt jealous or insecure in a romantic relationship at some point in their lives. But people who constantly feel these emotions may suffer from anxious attachment, a fear of abandonment often rooted in early childhood experiences. In Insecure in Love, readers will learn how to overcome attachment anxiety using compassionate self-awareness, a technique that can help them recognize negative thoughts and get to the root of their insecurities so that they can cultivate secure, healthy relationships to last a lifetime.
Synopsis
Has your romantic partner called you clingy, insecure, desperate, or jealous? No one wants to admit that they possess these qualities; but if you find yourself constantly on the alert, anxious, or worried when it comes to your significant other, you may suffer from anxious attachment, a fear of abandonment that is often rooted in early childhood experiences. In Insecure in Love, you'll learn how to overcome attachment anxiety using compassionate self-awareness, a technique that can help you recognize your negative thoughts or unhealthy behavior patterns and respond to them in a nurturing wayrather than beating yourself up. Youll also learn how insecurity can negatively affect healthy dialog between you and your partner (or potential partners) and develop the skills needed to stop you from reverting back to old patterns of neediness and possessiveness.
If you suffer from anxious attachment, you probably know that you need to change, and yet you have remained stuck. With compassionate self-awareness, you can successfully explore old anxiety-perpetuating perceptions and habits without being overwhelmed or paralyzed by them. By understanding the psychological factors at the root of your attachment anxiety, you will learn to cultivate secure, healthy relationships to last a lifetime. If youre ready to stop getting stuck in the same hurtful relationship patterns and finally break the cycle of heartache, this book can show you how to get the love you deserveand keep it!
Synopsis
This revised and expanded edition of the classic relationship-skills book offers couples a comprehensive approach to better communication, greater intimacy, and deeper commitment. The new edition includes way to use acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles for better conflict management.
Synopsis
Love takes work, but, when it comes to relationships, it pays to work smarter. Couple Skills, Second Edition, revised and updated from the therapist-recommended classic, will show you how to work smarter in your relationship. You'll learn to improve communication, cope better with problems, and resolve conflicts with the one you love in healthy and creative ways. Each chapter teaches you an essential skill that supports greater relationship satisfaction and deeper intimacy.
New to this edition is a chapter on using acceptance skills, developed from the revolutionary new acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). These new approaches will help you to accept your partner's feelings (and your own emotions) without judgment. Using these techniques will help you decide what you really value in your relationship and then commit to acting in ways that further those values every day.
Synopsis
Wired for Love offers couples principles from attachment theory and cognitive neuroscience to help them nurture the ìcouple bubbleî and learn to please and soothe their partners. Readers also discover effective nonverbal communication skills, techniques for quickly resolving common pitfalls and conflicts, and easy ways to increase feelings of comfort and security.
About the Author
Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, When Anger Hurts, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. He has also penned two fiction novels, Us and The Wawona Hotel. McKay received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. He lives and works in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.Patrick Fanning is a professional writer in the mental health field and the founder of a men's support group in northern California. He has authored and coauthored eight self-help books, including Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, Couple Skills, and Mind and Emotions.Kim Paleg, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and El Sobrante, CA. She is on the faculty of John F. Kennedy University. She is a contributing author to the self-help classic When Anger Hurts and coedited the widely used professional book Focal Group Psychotherapy. She specializes in couples and family therapy and conducts workshops on parenting.