Customer Reviews

ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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I think this is a great book. Russ Harris writes in a clear style that gets right to the point. He shows how all couples are bound to struggle at some time and become disconnected from their relationship values. I think this is an important point, because we often go into relationships with the fairy tale idea that relationships should be easy (happily ever after). I think "ACT with Love" does a good job of showing how easy it is for all of us to lose contact with our partners and no longer see them as they really are. It describes how a once loving, caring relationship can become a war.

The book proposes an anecdote based on Acceptance and Commitment therapy. Basically, it shows how couples can become more mindful, accepting of things they can't change, and values driven. I believe these three skills are essential for love and intimacy.

I like the format of the book. I found it easy to skim and find topics I was most interested in. I found the exercises to be helpful. I liked that the book was both serious and humorous (e.g., in one section Dr. Harris discusses destructive relationship tactics such as "exhuming the corpse " and "springing the ambush"

I strongly recommend this book, both to relationship counsellors and to people in relationships. I don't think you need to wait till you are having problems in a relationship to get it. It probably would make for some good preventative medicine

This ACT book is probably the best i've read to date on relationship building. It lays out the subject in an easy to read format and challenges the reader to pause after each chapter and practice the techniques. As a CBT therapist I find the approach that ACT (Acceptance and Committment Therapy) proposes to such matters an advance on simply trying to control thoughts. As the book points out such attempts at changing thoughts are difficult and fraught with set backs. Rather than take this approach ACT advises you to accept that negative thoughts are normal in any relationship and learning how to pay attention to what we value is a more solid approach to ensuring that we act appropriately.

I strongly recomend this book to any couple wanting to build a more solid and satisfying relationship no matter how long that they have been together. I have been married 32 years now and after reading this book have found new ways to enhance our relationship and move even closer to acting on those three little words "I love you."

Russ Harris, author of "The Happiness Trap", has written yet another engaging and easy-to-read book. As a clinical psychologist who uses ACT quite frequently with my clients, I have found this book to be an invaluable resource, both at a professional and personal level. This book will help you undertand the problems in your relationship, teach you strategies to stop struggling with painful thoughts and feelings, learn to accept and re-connect with your partner, identify your values, and enhance your relationship by helping you be the partner that YOU ultimately want to be. I highly recommend this book to anyone in a relationship. Whether you are wanting to enhance an already healthy relaionship, or whether you are wanting to repair a relationship that has become strained and disconnected, this book will give you the strategies to do so.

I have recommended this book to several of my clients. I and they have found it to be quite helpful. The author provides additional worksheets online that are worthwhile "homework" or in-session assignments. Dr. Harris does an excellent job of applying the ACT model to couples therapy in a way that is understandable and with experiential exercises that help treatment to generalize to real-life settings.

Once again Russ Harris has written a book that is well worth reading. It is accessible and sensible and a pretty interesting read. I work as a psychologist so read a fair few books and I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed this one - and found a lot of useful tips that I would use. I'll be recommending this book to anyone who seeks a better relationship!!

The book starts off in a bit of a repetitive fashion with the author seeming to dance around actually saying what he's trying to say, but it picks up after the first few chapters and gets into some really good topics. If you are considering how you can change someone else to be a better partner be ready to look in a mirror. The author stresses that haveing a great relationship is usually about being the best partner you can be first, then seeing how that creates a better situation with the other person. This can be tough since it will likely feel a bit false for some at at first, but the author does encourage working through the exercises as a couple. You can do it all alone, but it will be tougher than doing it together. The questions that are asked in the exercises are simple yet thought provoking. It really does make you consider all the ways you sabotage your relationship. And I really like the point the author makes early on about how everyone considers at one time or another life with another partner, or alone. There is hope for your relationship, but it will require you to change yourself first. If, after all that, you still aren't in a good situation then you know it's time to go.

This book is quite helpful! It definitely changes my way of thinking. I had been doing some of the things even before I read the book, for example, when my bf & I had a fight and I was very furious, instead of yelling back, I thought about what was the most important to me - resolving the issue to have an end result I liked or yelling at him just to make myself feel good for the moment - and I chose wisely. The book pretty much talks about this type of things - focus on what you really want as end result, and see what you can do to achieve it. Don't let emotion rule you or fool you. Also focus on what you have control over, which is your action not your partner's action, and take well control of it, and then you'll realize other things will just flow in to your liking.

One suggestion I'd have to other buyers/readers is to keep an open mind when you read this book, and you'll most likely learn a lot. I pretty much took in whatever it said. However, when I recommended this book to a friend who's married, she only flipped it for 10 pages and gave up. She said she didn't believe what the book said.

ACT with Love is a well written text in the self-help genre. The book relies heavily on principles normally used in a therapeutic setting but breaks them down in an easily understandable way. It's has plenty of great strategies for the beginning clinician and the everyday couple coming down from the honeymoon phase. While this book is not meant to replace the benefits of an actual counseling session, it is a great explanation of how to move in the correction direction.

This book states that it is based on Eastern philosophies of mindfulness and that's exactly what it delivers. As a person who has read a lot of Buddhism books by Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hahn, and others, this book was quite basic for me. It implores the reader to be mindful of their values in a relationship as to what kind of partner they wish to be, as well as points out a lot of techniques you may be using with your partner that aren't workable and goes on to provide solutions. To the Buddhist student, these principles are pretty basic and elementary and ones that you have probably been practising for quite some time. To those completely new to Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, this book provides a real basic introduction without being preachy and religion based.
I didn't attempt to do any of the exercises in the book. Some of which seemed downright uncomfortable to me, such as listing all the crappy things you do in the relationship and have your partner do the same. A lot of the exercises to me just seemed really depressing and dwelling on negativity. They felt like they would be really uncomfortable so they didn't motivate me to engage in any of them. On a brighter note, there were some exercises that involved bonding with your partner, which seemed good to me, but then I wondered why you would need an exercise to fill in about it, why not just do it?

For myself, it was a good reminder to continue on the course of everything I already knew based on my years of reading Pema Chodron, but I find an actual book by Pema to be a lot more meaty and indepth. This is definitely an introduction to mindful relationships and living, and that's ultimately a good thing. I would recommend this for couples trying to navigate the difficult waters of a challenging relationship as I think it points out some valuable things, but for a more seasoned student of Eastern Philosophy and mindfullness, I'd pretty much skip it.

This book was in great shape, got to me in a reasonable amount of time, and was reasonably priced. Satisfied overall