The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

Bestselling author Harriet Lerner focuses on the challenge and the importance of being able to express one's "authentic voice" in intimate relationships.

The key problem in relationships, particularly over time, is that people begin to lose their voice. Despite decades of assertiveness training and lots of good advice about communicating with clarity, timing, and tact, women and men find that their greatest complaints in marriage and other intimate relationships are that they are not being heard, that they cannot affect the other person, that fights go nowhere, and that conflict brings only pain, making effective conflict resolution seem impossible. Although an intimate, long-term relationship offers the greatest possibilities for knowing the other person and being known, these relationships are also fertile ground for silence and frustration when it comes to articulating a true self. And yet giving voice to this self is at the center of having both a relationship and a self, the foundation of true self-respect. Much as she did in THE MOTHER DANCE, Lerner will approach this rich subject with tales from her personal life and clinical work, inspiring and teaching readers to speak their own truths during difficult conversations with the most important people in their lives.

Based on decades of clinical work, Dr. Lerner offers clear, evidence-based strategies to transform your relationships:

• Find Your Authentic Voice: Stop losing yourself in your most important relationships and learn to speak your mind and heart with clarity, even when you feel unheard.
• Navigate Communication Problems: Move beyond fights that go nowhere. Understand the common patterns―like silent men and angry women―and discover how to make conflict an opportunity for growth.
• Set Healthy Boundaries: Clarify your "bottom line"―the values and limits you won't compromise. Learn to say what you will and won't accept to preserve your integrity and well-being.
• Understand Your Family Dynamics: Discover how your first family taught you (or didn't teach you) to speak, and how to unlearn patterns of silence or frustration that are holding you back.

Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., is one of our nation’s most loved and respected relationship experts. Renowned for her work on the psychology of women and family relationships, she served as a staff psychologist at the Menninger Clinic for more than two decades. A distinguished lecturer, workshop leader, and psychotherapist, she is the author of The Dance of Anger and other bestselling books. She is also, with her sister, an award-winning children's book writer. She and her husband are therapists in Lawrence, Kansas, and have two sons.