Loving in the Here & Now [Paperback]

Jane Parsons-Fein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2004

A revolutionary book that helps readers break patterns of the past and create loving relationships.

Countless books have told us that communication is the key to successful relationships; but communication involves more than just words. Our relationships are shaped by verbal and non-verbal language. A tone of voice, a look, a certain phrase or gesture from our partner can cause us to react in ways seemingly out of our control; they simply "push our buttons." Similarly, a casual comment can send our partner into a fit of rage. These exchanges have nothing to do with the present moment, but have everything to do with our past.

Each one of us carries around unmet needs and unhealed wounds, and intimate relationships make us most vulnerable to the emotions surrounding these earlier hurts. Too often in relationships, we respond to our partner from that place of pain-completely unaware that we are doing it. Loving in the Here and Now shows readers how to become conscious of their own and their partner's "hot buttons," how to dismantle them, and how to heal the patterns of the past in order to have a loving future.

In the tradition of Harville Hendrix's Getting the Love You Want, this practical book is full of exercises designed to help readers revitalize an old relationship or jump-start a new one.

It will enable readers to create a relationship that is different from previous disappointing ones and communicate with their partner in ways that draw them closer and promote greater intimacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lousy adult relationships are but the mesmerized reenactments of a troubled past, according to this self-helper. Psychotherapist Parsons-Fein has a basically Freudian outlook, strongly influenced by pioneering hypnotherapist Milton Erickson. She contends that troubled relationships, like the aggressive-demanding-volatile vs. passive-withdrawn-frigid couples that frequent her case studies, grow out of behaviors imprinted on the unconscious by early traumas. These resurface in adulthood when strong emotions send us into "trance states"; at holiday gatherings, for example, a "family trance" can take hold, making everyone regress into childhood. Parsons-Fein's therapeutic regimen stresses using self-hypnotic techniques to debug the unconscious and put couples in a psychologically receptive state in which to hash out issues. The recommended exercises emphasize a talking-cure style of hypnotically enhanced, free-associational introspection-"let your thoughts move across the horizon of your mind like clouds and just observe them changing shape" is a typical instruction; to help unearth the all-important patterns of family dysfunction, Parsons-Fein urges readers to amass exhaustive, multi-generational family psycho-histories via questionnaires that include awkward queries like "Do you think your mother/father is sexually beautiful?" The result is a daunting do-it-yourself psychoanalysis that many couples may not have the fortitude to attempt.
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About the Author

Jane Parsons-Fein, CSW, BCD, DAHB, a practicing psychotherapist for more than thirty years, is the president of the Parsons-Fein Training Institute for Psychotherapy and Hypnosis and president emeritus of the New York Milton H. Erickson Society for Psychotherapy and Hypnosis, of which she was the cofounder in 1981.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (January 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585423009
• ISBN-13: 978-1585423002
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye opener, February 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Loving in the Here & Now (Paperback)

This is an excellent book that presents a unique way of understanding oneself and relationships. Parsons-Fein explains how, without realizing it, we are shifting states of awareness throughout the day, and that everyday we naturally move in and out of trance states many of which are positive - some of our best and most creative moments. She explains therapeutic hypnosis, everyday trance, and the unconscious in terms that are down-to-earth and understandable. This idea that we are naturally shifting in and out of trance states I found to be extremely interesting, but there is a lot more in this book. The author explains how painful relationship patterns are most productively understood as negative trance states that were initially formed and learned in childhood. She teaches the reader to recognize these negative trance reactions and painful patterns of relating when they are happening in current relationships. She provides methods and guidance to do the detective work necessary in order to discover the childhood experiences and influences at the root of these painful states. Most importantly, she teaches self-hypnosis methods by which you can, with practice, learn to shift out of these negative trance reactions, bypass them in the future, and discover new and more joyful ways of relating with your partner. She also teaches about positive, creative, trance and how it can be used to enhance intimacy, sexuality, self-exploration and healing. The self-hypnosis exercises do take some practice, and the questionnaires do take work and time, but doing them takes the value of the book to a whole other level. Also, the tone of the writing is suffused with love, compassion, and hopefulness about people and their capacity to grow. In short, there is a lot in this book, and I continue to get a lot out of it. I highly recommend it not only to people who want to improve their relationships but to people who are curious about themselves.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Save Thousands On Therapy, February 24, 2004

By 

T. Altruda (Burbank, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loving in the Here & Now (Paperback)

If you do even half of the exercises in this book with your wife (or husband or girlfriend or sig. other) you will feel a huge change. Just learning to untie the relationship knots by "shifting out of the family trance" is enough to open your relationship up and move past those big dumb blockages we get stuck in. My wife is halfway through this book, and we've done the exercises for five nights, and we really turned a corner. Hopefully it'll stick. (We skipped some of the stuff that's too deep.) Last time we were in therapy we just yelled at each other. This feels much more healthy, not to mention the money we're saving!