Books
FOR THE PUBLIC
Developing Habits for Relationship Success: A Step-By-Step Guide for Improving Your Relationship (Verson 5.0)
Over the past thirty years, groundbreaking studies on the relationships of couples have identified specific interpersonal habits necessary for relationship success. This book details each of these crucial interpersonal habits and offers dozens of guidelines and exercises for helping relationship partners implement them. Your book will be personalized, so that your partner’s name will be entered into all of the exercises and worksheets. Then, it will be sent to your email account as a PDF file, so that you can print specific exercises — or the whole book — as many times as you want.
“Developing Habits for Relationship Success is a highly accessible book for couples desiring to improve their relationships. Brent Atkinson draws on the latest research into the behavior of couples in intimate relationships and the impact of the emotional brain on human interaction. He helps couples understand the often confusing complexities of long-term relationships and provides a specific step-by-step guide to developing habits that greatly increase the chances of having a successful, loving relationship. Having good relationships is difficult. This book makes it easier!”
- Harvey Joanning, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus and former Director, Marriage and Family Therapy Doctoral Program, Iowa State University
“If I had to pick one book to give all couples, it would be Developing Habits for Relationship Success by Brent Atkinson. As the Founder of the PEX method (Pragmatic Experiential Method for Improving Relationships), Atkinson has created a manual that will give you everything you need to get unstuck and move forward regardless of your circumstances. This book is required reading for all NCCT clients, and we consider it so essential we give a copy of it to every couple that attends NCCT for a private retreat or intensive. What makes the PEX approach so unique is that even one member of a couple can make use of it. So if you have a partner who refuses to go to couples therapy or won’t accept influence from you regardless of how skillful you are, the tools offered in this book are critical. Atkinson was the first to teach me about the importance of standing up skills. And not just why they are essential, but how to stand up well. He normalizes core differences. He proposes that we can always get further when we avoid defaulting to a perception of overall blame of our partner. In this sense, his ideas align beautifully with Brené Brown, who encourages us to assume people are doing the best they can, even when what they offer up is inadequate. And if that is not enough, this book, more than any other resource I know, will give you a plethora of exercises, concrete tools, and even audio clips (to listen to when you are freaking out). There is no other book comparable to it, and again and again, our clients tell us it is the most helpful thing they have ever read.”
- Kerry Lusignan, Director, Northampton Center for Couples Therapy.
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FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy: Advances in Neurobiology and the Science of Intimate Relationships
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This book introduces Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples (PET-C), a step-by-step approach to couples therapy developed at The Couples Clinic in Geneva, Illinois. PET-C translates recent advances in neurobiology and the science of intimate relationships into practical strategies for helping couples improve their relationships. In PET-C, partners learn to identify internal states which perpetuate outmoded thoughts, attitudes, and interactions, “re-wire” these states for more flexibility, and activate alternate states which support new avenues for thought and action
“Destined to be one of the most important books on couples therapy of this decade. A must read for the informed psychotherapist. Atkinson makes a brilliant case that successful psychotherapy literally rewires the brain for more flexibility by forging new neural networks and enabling clients to shift emotional states away from hurt/protection and toward intimacy. This revolutionary volume shows that partners need to become more skilled at responding to upsetting things that their partners say or do. Atkinson guides the reader step-by-step through the processes of helping clients identify and shift emotional states. A tour de force of scientific sophistication and clinical wisdom. Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy will be a classic!”
- Douglas H. Sprenkle, Ph.D., Former Editor, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Recipient, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Award for Cumulative Contribution to Family Therapy Research
“All couples therapists have observed first-hand that during intense interaction partners can find that their brains are ’emotionally hijacked’ and all the communication skills they have been carefully coached to enact disappear. This is a critical reason for the alarmingly high relapse rate after seemingly successful therapy. In Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy, Atkinson explains the scientific basis for this phenomenon and, more importantly, he offers step-by-step guidance for therapists to help couples deal with the intense affect that can disable effective communication. Any couples therapists concerned about increasing their effectiveness and avoiding relapse need to master this powerful new approach!”
- Thomas C. Todd, Ph.D., Director, Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Adler School of Professional Psychology