The Commitment Dialogues: How to Talk Your Way Through the Tough Times and Build a Stronger Relationship

A breakthrough guide to healing troubled relationships

Why do couples break up? In The Commitment Dialogues, bestselling author Matthew McKay dissects a range of typical dialogues gone wrong in order to illustrate how fear sabotages relationships. He introduces readers to 10 couples struggling with specific issues. As their dialogues unfold, each couple's core problems are revealed. Dr. McKay then shows how his techniques can help heal fractured relationships and get couples working as a team to resolve conflicts over money, children, monogamy, commitment, and more. Readers also learn:

• The four big relationship-damaging fears: Fear of Engulfment, Fear of Abandonment, Fear of Shame, and
• Fear of Emptiness
• How these fears underlie virtually every relationship issue and how to work through conflicts
• How conversations turn sour when people project their fears onto their mates
• Techniques for turning fears around for more productive, effective communication

Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with more than twenty-five years experience helping people change their lives. He is the coauthor of twenty-two psychology/self-help books, several of which have become standard works of reference for therapists and their patients all over the world. In addition to his private practice, Dr. McKay is also clinical director of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services in San Francisco. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two children.

Barbara Quick is the author of four books, including Still Friends: Living Happily Ever After . . . Even if Your Marriage Falls Apart and Northern Edge: A Novel, which won the Discover prize in 1990. Her reviews, essays, and articles have appeared in major publications such as the New York Times Book Review, Newsweek, Ms., the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Quick lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her twelve-year-old son, Julian.