Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition [Paperback]

Harville Hendrix (Author, Afterword)

Book Description

Release date: December 26, 2007

Originally published in 1988, Getting the Love You Want has helped millions of couples attain more loving, supportive, and deeply satisfying relationships. The 20th anniversary edition contains extensive revisions to this groundbreaking book, with a new chapter, new exercises, and a foreword detailing Dr. Hendrix’s updated philosophy for eliminating all negativity from couples’ daily interactions, allowing readers of the 2008 edition to benefit from his ongoing discoveries during his last two decades of work.

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., in partnership with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD., originated Imago Relationship Therapy, a unique healing process for couples, prospective couples, and parents. Together they have more than thirty years’ experience as educators and therapists and their work has been translated into more than 50 languages, with Imago practiced by two thousand therapists worldwide. Harville and Helen have six children and live in New York and New Mexico.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hendrix provides much insight into how spouses can mature through one another."—Booklist

"Harville Hendrix offers the best program I've seen for using the love/hate energy in marriage to help a couple heal one another and to become whole together."—T. George Harris, Editor-in-Chief, American Health

"I know of no better guide for couples who genuinely desire a maturing relationship."—M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled
 
"Getting the Love You Want is a remarkable book—the most incisive and persuasive I have ever read on the knotty problems of marriage relationships."—Ann Roberts, former president, Rockefeller Family Fund

"Getting the Love You Want provides a road map for partners seeking a path to intimacy and passionate friendship."—Marion Solomon, Ph.D.

"This book will help any couple find the love they want hidden under all the concealing confusion of a close and intimate relationship. I have seen these principles in application and they work!"—James A. Hall, M.D.

Book Description

In Getting the Love You Want, Dr. Harville Hendrix presents the relationship skills that have already helped hundreds of thousands of couples to replace confrontation and criticism with a healing process of mutual growth and support. This extraordinary practical guide describes the revolutionary technique of Imago Relationship Therapy, which combines a number of disciplines--including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, among others--to create a program to resolve conflict and renew communication and passion.
Getting the Love You Want describes the three stages of intimate relationships, provides illustrative case studies and gives helpful recommendations to overcome the obstacles in those stages to create a stronger bond between couples. First, he chronicles the stages of most relationships-attraction, romantic love and the power struggle-and suggests ways for partners to identify the conflicts associated with each of them. Then, he explores methods for achieving a "Conscious Marriage," where the early phases of romance are rekindled and confrontation is slowly replaced by growth and support. Finally, Dr. Hendrix incorporates these ideas into a unique therapeutic course, offering a series of proven exercises that lead to insight, resolution and revitalization. Step by step, he describes how to communicate with greater accuracy and sensitivity, how to let go of self-defeating behaviors, and how to focus energy on meeting each partners' needs.
With Getting the Love You Want couples in any stage of a relationship can resolve their conflicts and achieve mutual emotional satisfaction.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; Revised and Updated edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805087001
• ISBN-13: 978-0805087000
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Love & Romance
  • #6 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations
  • #7 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Narrow View November 25, 2011

By GTO

Format:Paperback

The upside to this book is that it should get couples to discuss their issues openly. The downside is that Hendrix has his narrow philosophy about where all marriage problems come from, and then conveniently interprets every relational problem within this philosophy. Hendrix's main belief is that we are all looking for partners that will give us what we did not receive from our childhood primary caregivers. Though this may be true in certain cases, to make this the only source of issues in relationships is very simplistic. Relationships are complicated. Simple answers are seldom appropriate. However, this book will get you to think about your relationship and hopefully help you to get to the true root of your relational issues.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 20 Years Later August 9, 2010

By LEE OKELLEY

Format:Paperback

Two decades ago, while I was enduring the aftermath of a divorce, an acquaintance "tricked" me into reading this book. (That's an interesting story, but for another time.)

I had heard it said that unless we understand why we married our first spouse, we were almost certainly doomed to remarry the "same person". That I did NOT want to do. So, in order to avoid that dreadful prospect, I began reading this book.

At first I was appalled at Hendrix's explanation of why I had chosen my first wife. In fact, I was so offended (and frightened) by what he said, that I almost threw away the book. However, I was just desperate enough to keep reading. And, I am certainly thankful I did. By the end of the book, I was convinced Hendrix was absolutely right in his explanation of love (as a mental process) and why we choose whom we choose.

Twenty years later, I can testify that I am still indebted to this book. It has helped me avoid a number of HORRIBLE mistakes that I was initially inclined to make.

I would also advise anyone who will listen to read this book. Read it as if you're a single person, even if you're married. Read it if you want to understand why you make the decisions you make. Read it if you want to avoid multiple failures in relationships and all sorts of life-changing decisions.

As Solomon wrote: "The mind of the wise seeks knowledge. But the mouth of the fool feeds on folly." (Proverbs 15.14) This book might just be the first meal of wisdom you need.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars very helpful book December 1, 2010

By Mona Lisa

Format:Paperback

Very helpful book in understanding you own motives and feelings in a relationship.
The writing is flowing and interesting. Personally, I am not a fan of freudian approach that blames every unpleasant interaction in unmet needs in childhood, rather, I tend to read it as a metaphor that helps in describing feelings more accurately.

One piece of advice: if you started reading it, don't stop in the middle. After having read the first part, you would be in real need for the second and third parts in order to deal constructively with this new information.
Also, don't forget there are endless ways to understand and analyse your relationship and that this is just one perspective. No single theory can provide you with complete view.