Talk to Me Like I'm Someone You Love, revised edition: Relationship Repair in a Flash

No matter our attachment style, we all crave connection with our partners.

Talk to Me Like I'm Someone You Love is a brilliant interactive relationship tool that can help couples stop arguing and begin healing. Couples therapist Nancy Dreyfus hit upon this revolutionary practice during a particularly angry couples-therapy session in which a wife's unrelenting criticism of her husband was making him more and more emotionally withdrawn. Suddenly, Dreyfus found herself scribbling on a scrap of paper, "Talk to me like I'm someone you love," and gesturing to the husband that he should hold it up. He did, and within seconds, the familiar power differential between the two shifted, and a gentler, more genuine connection emerged.

This revised edition features two new sections—one on making love and another on deepening trust—containing over 25 new "flash cards for real life," written statements that hold the power to express what we wish we could say to the person we love but for which we can't find either the right words or the right tone in which to say them. Each of the statements in this book is accompanied by "field notes" from the author that explain when, why, and how to use the statement, as well as real-life stories from the author's practice.

Nancy Dreyfus, Psy.D., is a psychotherapist and couples therapist with more than two decades of experience. She holds a doctorate degree from Hahnemann University Medical School.