Creating Connection: A Relational-Cultural Approach with Couples (Routledge Series on Family Therapy and Counseling) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415529913 ISBN 13: 9780415529914

Publisher: Routledge, 2013

Synopsis

Relational-Cultural Therapy (RCT) is developed to accurately address the relational experiences of persons in de-valued cultural groups. As a model, it is ideal for work with couples: it encourages active participation in relationships, fosters the well-being of everyone involved, and acknowledges that we grow through and toward relationships throughout the lifespan. Part and parcel with relationships is the knowledge that, whether intentionally or not, we fail each other, misunderstand each other, and hurt each other, causing an oftentimes enduring disconnect.
 This book helps readers understand the pain of disconnect and to use RCT to heal relationships in a variety of settings, including with heterosexual couples, lesbian and gay couples, and mixed race couples. Readers will note a blending of approaches (person-centered, narrative, systems, and feminist theory), all used to change the cultural conditions that can contribute to problems: unequal, sometimes abusive power arrangements, marginalization of groups, and rigid gender, race, and sexuality expectations. Readers will learn to help minimize economic and power disparities and encourage the growth of mutual empathy while looking at a variety of relational challenges, such as parenting, stepfamilies, sexuality, and illness. Polarities of “you vs. me” will be replaced with the healing concept of “us.”

About this title

About the Author

Judith V. Jordan, PhD, ABPP in Clinical Psychology, is the Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She is a founding scholar of Relational-Cultural Theory.

Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD, ABPP, is Distinguished Professor in the Division of Psychology and Counseling at Governors State University, and a psychologist at the Wellness Clinic in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Review

Relational-Cultural Theory alerts us to the power of connection in people's lives and also the impediments to closeness. This book will be of great value to therapists working with couples whose relationships cross culturally monitored boundaries. In describing ways of moving through impasse, it illuminates the power of love to upset a patriarchal order. - Carol Gilligan, Author of In a Different Voice and The Birth of Pleasure

Creating Connection is perhaps the most meaningful, deep, and yet pragmatic compendium on couples experience and couples therapy to be published in the last fifty years. It brings renewed hope for our patients in painful and disconnected relationships, helping to achieve true understanding and regain genuine meaning the power of connection in their lives. If you read one book on couples treatment this year, Creating Connection must be that one. - William S Pollack, Ph.D., ABPP, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Author of Real Boys and Real Boys' Voices

Judith Jordan and Jon Carlson s new book, Creating Connection, deepens the application of the profound Relational-Cultural Theory to couples. The essays in this impressive collection move the therapy paradigm further towards the cutting edge of a relational lens. Since the relational is foundational, and this perspective is the future of therapy, we recommend this book as an essential read for all therapists. - Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen Lakelly Hunt, Ph.D., Co-Authors of Making Marriage Simple and Receiving Love
Creating Connection is a landmark volume in the field of therapy for committed couples. Its skillful integration of feminist awareness of our multiple and intersecting identities and their effects on intimacy with an emphasis on connection and empathy in relationship offers a refreshing perspective on how to think about intimate relationships caught in struggle. It's accessible, not only for therapists who wish t

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0415529913
• ISBN 13: 9780415529914
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Jordan Judith V., Carlson Jon