Relationship Sanity

A vital guide to overcome the barriers to achieving intimacy and meaningful connection

People in resilient relationships are co-owners, experience reciprocity, and are better prepared to meet challenges authentically and effectively. In this sequel to the best-selling Irrelationship, the authors use examples from their clinical practice to review the concept of irrelationship and expand the DREAM Sequence, a tool used by affected couples to address perennial relationship issues.

By mutually and mindfully viewing the relationship as a third entity, separate from each individual, couples will learn how to live in and with the ambiguity of empathy, intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional investment and view relationship sanity as a deliberate and joyful undertaking to maintain and deepen connection.

Mark B. Borg, Jr., PhD is a community psychologist and psychoanalyst, founding partner of The Community Consulting Group, and a supervisor of psychotherapy at the William Alanson White Institute. He has written extensively about the intersection of psychoanalysis and community crisis intervention. He is in private practice in New York City. Dr. Borg attended graduate school at the California School of Professional Psychology, where he earned both his MA and PhD in a dual-track program in clinical and community psychology. While there, Dr. Borg served on a four-year community empowerment project that was developed in South Central Los Angeles in the wake of the 1992 riots. Also at that time, he conducted individual and group psychotherapy at the AIDS Services Foundation in Orange County, California.

Grant H. Brenner, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice, specializing in treating mood and anxiety disorders and the complex problems that may arise in adulthood from childhood trauma and loss. He completed medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and holds Certificates in Psychoanalysis and in Organizational Psychodynamics from the William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Brenner serves on the board of the nonprofit organization Disaster Psychiatry Outreach. He is a faculty member of the Mount Sinai Hospital and Director of the Trauma Service of the William Alanson White Institute. He is an editor of Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience: Integrating Care in Disaster Relief Work, and the author of several papers and book chapters related to disaster response.

Daniel Berry, RN, MHA has practiced as a Registered Nurse in New York City since 1987. Working in in-patient, home care and community settings, his work has taken him into some of the city's most privileged households as well as some of its most drug- and crime-ravaged public housing projects in Manhattan and the South Bronx. He is a Medicare-Medicaid-certified surveyor-investigator, and worked in the long-term care regulatory sector for more than ten years. Currently, he is the Assistant Director of Nursing for Risk Management at a New York City facility that serves victims of street violence, traumatic injuries, and addiction. He is also an honorary nurse consultant to a United Nations-certified NGO based in Afghanistan that promotes community development of services addressing women’s and children’s health issues.