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

Harville Hendrix (Author, Afterword)

Book Description

Publication 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

Amazon.com Review

When Harville Hendrix writes about relationships, he discusses them not just as an educator and a therapist, but as a man who has himself been through a failed marriage. Hendrix felt the sting of his divorce intensely because he believed it signaled not only his failure as a husband but also his failure as a couples counselor. Investigating why his marriage dissolved led him to start looking into the psychology of love. Marriage, he ultimately discovered, is the "practice of becoming passionate friends."

As a result of his research, Hendrix created a therapy he calls Imago Relationship Therapy. In it, he combines what he's learned in a number of disciplines, including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, to name just a few. He expounds upon this approach in Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. His purpose in writing the book, he says, is "to share with you what I have learned about the psychology of love relationships, and to help you transform your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship."

Divided into three sections, the book covers "The Unconscious Marriage," which details a marriage in which the remaining desires and behavior of childhood interfere with the current relationship; "The Conscious Marriage," which shows a marriage that fulfils those childhood needs in a positive manner; and a 10-week "course in relationship therapy, " which gives detailed exercises for you and your partner to follow in order to learn how to "replace confrontation and criticism ... with a healing process of mutual growth and support." The text is occasionally dry and technical; however, the information provided is valuable, the case studies are interesting, and the exercises are revealing and helpful. By utilizing his program, Hendrix hopes you too will be able to solve your marital difficulties without the expense of a therapist. --Jenny Brown --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

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: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (186 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Love & Romance
  • #26 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations
  • #30 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health

More About the Author

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., a clinical pastoral counselor and co-creator of Imago Relationship Therapy, has more than thirty-five years' experience as an educator, public lecturer, and couples' therapist.