Book Description
This is a highly recommended resource when one spouse (or significant other) has Borderline Personality Disorder. High Conflict Couple is a guide for couples seeking to ease their conflicts and deepen their relationship. This is an excellent book to share with your BPD partner as it doesn't make direct mention of BPD - other than that the authors are all leaders in the field of BPD.
"BPD" couples need more than just the run-of-the-mill relationship advice to solve relationship problems. When out-of-control emotions are the root cause of problems, no amount of effective communication or intimacy building will fix what ails it. According to Fruzzetti, what "high-conflict" couples need is help regulating the emotions that provoke the "escape or win" mode of interaction that has come to define them.
In this book, Fruzzetti, adapts these emotion regulation tools (dialectical behavior therapy - DBT) for use by couples. For example, Fruzzetti suggest analyzing the relationship and identify the issues that cause conflict ("triggers") - and then identify more constructive ways to handle them. Once you have identified the typical triggers and also
Interview of
Alan Fruzzetti, Ph.D.
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identified more helpful alternatives; put them together - 1) imagine a trigger; 2) imagine remembering your goal (to improve your relationship); and 3) imagine responding in a self- respecting and respectful way.
Using mindfulness and distress tolerance techniques, the you can hopefully learn how to deescalate conflict situations before they have a chance to flare into serious fights. Other techniques help partners in the relationship disclose their personal fears and vulnerabilities and validate one another’s experiences. The idea is that, with practice and commitment, the couple can learn how to manage problems with negotiation, not conflict, and find better acceptance and closeness.
The books tone is more analytical than most marriage guides - it is not written is the chatty style of most self help books. We feel that this is actually its strength, speaking in a straight-forward way.
The message is the same as many guides, that validation (supportive loving communication) is the key to a happy, intimate relationship. What is unique is the use dialectical behavior therapy to help BPD couples regulate out-of-control emotions, tolerate distressing situations, and resolve problems-an approach proven to help even the most highly reactive couples build healthy relationships.
About the Author
Alan E. Fruzzetti, Ph.D., is associate professor of psychology and director of the DBT Therapy and Research Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the coauthor with Perry Hoffman, a professor and The forward was written by Marsha Linehan, PhD, of Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Couples and Families.
# Paperback: 177 pages
# Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; 1 edition (December 3, 2006)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 157224450X
# ISBN-13: 978-1572244504
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