Customer Reviews

The High-Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy, and Validation

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High Conflict Couple is a concise, easy to understand guide for couples seeking to deepen their relationship and ease their conflicts.

Its tone is a bit crisper, cooler, and more analytical than most marriage guides. This is actually its strength, speaking to the analytical half of your relationship in a straight-forward way they will appreciate and understand even if they shy away from most relationship-help books as being too touchie-feelie. The message is the same as many guides, that validation (lingo for healthy supportive loving communication) is the key to a happy, intimate relationship-- and it is the key. This book helps approach that need from the angle of couples or individuals who have already been conflict-prone.

The book has open-ended exercises that are useful if a bit vague, precise examples, and very good flow from chapter to chapter, start to finish. Even the layout is accessible with short measured segments that allow the reader to pause and reflect frequently.

Pair this with The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert for a complete set of paperback marriage counseling: that book contains many accessible examples, detailed exercises, and 2-person activities to try with your partner. I highly recommend the combination of the two books.

Regardless, if you're the emotional half of your relationship, get High Conflict Couple for your emotionally-challenged partner. If you're the analytical half, the guide will speak to you right away, and you'll wonder why nobody ever explained it to you in such a direct easy to understand way.

Highly recommended whether you are in a happy relationship, a struggling one, or struggling to understand why a relationship failed.

This book is full of practical tips on how to make any couple's relationship better. It places a lot of emphasis on validation (what it is, how to validate and how we frequently inadvertantly invalidate each other without realizing it). Each chapter includes exercises to practice what was discussed. The exercises essentially help a couple to start to immediately put into practice what was discussed in the chapter; it's amazing how the techniques, though not complicated, really seem to work. In summary, the book is well organized, easy to read, and an extremely effective way for a couple motivated toward change to move forward in a positive way. Thank you!

This book is an important new resource not only for people concerned about relationship conflict. Anyone struggling with anxiety, depression, or other "individual" emotional problems who is also in an intimate relationship could benefit. More and more, psychologists are discovering just how important relationships are to what we once thought were individual personal problems. This wonderful book is rich with real life examples and straightforward exercises every reader can do. This book is highly recommended for anyone wanting to improve their relationship with their partner!

Author Fruzzetti does a wonderful job of presenting the DBT interpersonal and mindfulness skills training in a way that allows my patients to begin a process of change. Although there is resistance when first encountered, as the patient continues to read and put into practice the suggested techniques, i.e. "rule of three validations," the favorable outcomes result in their continued use. Recommended for all clinicians dealing with resentment and anger issues.

This book really helped me understand some of the dynamics of my marriage that I had previously been confused by. I couldn't figure out how two people who love each other so much could rip each other to shreds in times of conflict. It's written very clearly and the exercises are great for helping you become more aware and less reactive. I would recommend this book for anyone who is struggling in a relationship and seeks to make it better.

This book would be helpful for a couple who experiences intense emotional conflicts and for psychotherapists who work with couples experiencing these conflicts. The book uses the principles of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and the author had worked with Dr. Marsha Linehan to develop this model. The book was easy to follow and understand.

I higly reccomend this book to anybody in a couple relationship, since this is not only for couples who have communications issues, but for all copules who want to truly be in a relationship with another human being- every day can be a jorney of discovery.

This book is the best I've read in this genre. This book gets right to the heart of the matter and describes real, concrete ways to step out of your old, tired patterns and reclaim the person you want to be. As I read it, I kept thinking that the author must have really been through these issues in his own life rather than just espousing what he had studied and learned in a book. The book is a fantastic guide to the reader who is serious about change. I highly recommend it. Thank you, Dr. Fruzzetti!

The skills outlined by Fruzzetti are easy to understand and practical to try in ones daily life with their significant other. The book highlights a skill called "validation" which most of us are not even aware of but is a behavior we perform daily. Increasing positive validation and decreasing nevative validation is a guaranteed way to improve your relationship. Once you see the results for yourself you'll be hooked!

If you are in an intimate relationship with someone with BPD or are suffering from the disorder yourself, this book is a wonderful help. It is best if the couple can work through the book together, but of only one is willing, it is still very helpful.