This supportive and empowering guide helps readers identify and build on their relational values, which the dominant culture tends to minimize, inhibit, or disparage. Written in an engaging, easy to read and use format, this workbook offers clear case examples and activities that readers can apply to their own relationships. The introductory chapter describes the problem––how unrecognized power imbalances in who notices, accommodates, and attends to one another make attaining satisfying, mutually supportive intimate relationships difficult. Chapters 2-5 introduce practices that help readers recognize the connections between their social worlds and how they engage in their relationships, with exercises that facilitate this personal awareness and enable them to share these experiences with their partners. Chapters 6-10 guide readers through assessing reciprocity in their relationships and exercises to apply each of the four components of the Circle of Care (mutual vulnerability, attunement, influence, and relational responsibility) and strategies for maintaining commitment to their relational goals over the long term. In each chapter, exercises are structured to first teach personal socio-emotional awareness, followed by relational practices that facilitate engagement based on mutual attunement and shared commitment rather than debate. This book views emotion and meaning as the link between individuals and the larger society and helps readers develop awareness of their social contexts and societal power processes that work against relationships.

This path-breaking volume introduces Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy for clinical work with troubled couples. Practice-focused and engaging, it integrates real-world knowledge of the intersections of gender, culture, power, and identity in relationships with empirical findings on the neurobiology of attraction. Case examples detail the process of therapists in the moment as they develop both their clinical skills and their understanding of the social contexts fueling couples' difficulties. Applications of the method, which can be used with same-sex couples as well as heterosexual ones, are shown in addressing infidelity, tapping into partners' spirituality, and modeling and encouraging mutual respect and support. Among the topics covered: Undoing gendered power in heterosexual couple relationships. Interpersonal neurobiology, couples, and the societal context. How gender discourses hijack couple therapy—and how it can be avoided. How SERT therapists develop interventions that address the larger context. Building a circle of care in same-sex couple relationships. Couple therapy with adult survivors of child abuse: gender, power, and trust. Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy opens out practical new possibilities for marriage and family therapists, clinical psychologists, social workers, and counselors seeking ideas for more meaningful couples work.

From best-selling relationship expert comes a common-sense guide to help you and your partner increase your emotional intelligence, teaching you practical ways to express your feelings and strengthen your relationship. What makes a relationship healthy? Most men and women will respond that it's good communication to be able to openly express their own thoughts and feelings, and to better understand their partner's. Emotional Intelligence for Couples explains basic principles of emotional intelligence to equip you with common-sense ways to express your feelings, allowing you to enjoy greater intimacy, clearer communication, and a deeper connection than you have ever known. Discover answers to questions like: What actions and behaviors will make our relationship healthier? How can we practice healthy arguing and recognize healthy anger? How can we prevent our criticism, manipulation, and blame games? Why do I need personal boundaries?

This supportive and empowering guide helps readers identify and build on their relational values, which the dominant culture tends to minimize, inhibit, or disparage. Written in an engaging, easy to read and use format, this workbook offers clear case examples and activities that readers can apply to their own relationships. The introductory chapter describes the problem--how unrecognized power imbalances in who notices, accommodates, and attends to one another make attaining satisfying, mutually supportive intimate relationships difficult. Chapters 2-5 introduce practices that help readers recognize the connections between their social worlds and how they engage in their relationships, with exercises that facilitate this personal awareness and enable them to share these experiences with their partners. Chapters 6-10 guide readers through assessing reciprocity in their relationships and exercises to apply each of the four components of the Circle of Care (mutual vulnerability, attunement, influence, and relational responsibility) and strategies for maintaining commitment to their relational goals over the long term. In each chapter, exercises are structured to first teach personal socio-emotional awareness, followed by relational practices that facilitate engagement based on mutual attunement and shared commitment rather than debate. This book views emotion and meaning as the link between individuals and the larger society and helps readers develop awareness of their social contexts and societal power processes that work against relationships.

Bringing together key theories and research in a unique integrative approach, Karen Rosen guides the reader through the fascinating and interrelated themes of attachment and the self. In this comprehensive overview, she examines developing relationships with caregivers, siblings, peers and friends from infancy through to adolescence. Suitable as a core text for advanced-level modules on social and emotional development.

The burgeoning multidisciplinary field of social and emotional learning (SEL) now has a comprehensive and definitive handbook covering all aspects of research, practice, and policy. The prominent editors and contributors describe state-of-the-art intervention and prevention programs designed to build students' skills for managing emotions, showing concern for others, making responsible decisions, and forming positive relationships. Conceptual and scientific underpinnings of SEL are explored and its relationship to children's and adolescents' academic success and mental health examined. Issues in implementing and assessing SEL programs in diverse educational settings are analyzed in depth, including the roles of school- and district-level leadership, teacher training, and school-family partnerships.

"[A] comprehensive, critical, empirical, and practical compilation of investigations about how diverse couples are trying to implement change and pursue equality in their relationships." -Katherine R. Allen, PhD Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University "[A] true gift to couple researchÖ.The studies reported in this marvelously disciplined collection hold living implications for couples and their therapists." -Evan Imber-Black Director, Center for Families and Health, Ackerman Institute for the Family While numerous couples strive for equality in their relationships, many are unaware of the insidious ways in which gender and power still affect them-from their career choices to communication patterns, child-rearing, housework, and more. Written for mental health professionals and others interested in contemporary couple relationships, this research-based book shows how couples are able to move beyond the dangers of gendered inequality and the legacy of hidden male power. The book analyzes the relationships of couples from various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The contributors present innovative clinical interventions, and suggest strategies therapists can use to help couples transform their relationships from being gender-based to equality-based. Explores these key issues: The risks of being in a relationship ruled by "gender legacy" behavior The differences between couples who get caught in gender legacy patterns and those who do not Gender-based patterns across the life cycle, including newly formed couples; early marriage; child-rearing; mothering and fathering Gendered power in couples dealing with illness; ethnic and racial differences; immigration and displacement issues

An eminent therapist explains what makes couples compatible and how to sustain a happy marriage. For the past thirty-five years, John Gottman’s research has been internationally recognized for its unprecedented ability to precisely measure interactive processes in couples and to predict the long-term success or failure of relationships. In this groundbreaking book, he presents a new approach to understanding and changing couples: a fundamental social skill called “emotional attunement,” which describes a couple’s ability to fully process and move on from negative emotional events, ultimately creating a stronger relationship. Gottman draws from this longitudinal research and theory to show how emotional attunement can downregulate negative affect, help couples focus on positive traits and memories, and even help prevent domestic violence. He offers a detailed intervention devised to cultivate attunement, thereby helping couples connect, respect, and show affection. Emotional attunement is extended to tackle the subjects of flooding, the story we tell ourselves about our relationship, conflict, personality, changing relationships, and gender. Gottman also explains how to create emotional attunement when it is missing, to lay a foundation that will carry the relationship through difficult times. Gottman encourages couples to cultivate attunement through awareness, tolerance, understanding, non-defensive listening, and empathy. These qualities, he argues, inspire confidence in couples, and the sense that despite the inevitable struggles, the relationship is enduring and resilient. This book, an essential follow-up to his 1999 The Marriage Clinic, offers therapists, students, and researchers detailed intervention for working with couples, and offers couples a roadmap to a stronger future together.

Writing to the practicing clinician, this book offers a step-by-step practical guide to Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT) when working with individuals, couples, and families. Most therapists know sociocultural systems influence their clients’ lives, but few know how to connect the dots between what happens in the wider society, interpersonal neurobiology, relational processes, and client well-being. Written by a founder of SERT, Carmen Knudson-Martin draws on knowledge from multiple disciplines to innovatively weave together a practical step-by-step guide that demystifies the connections between micro and macro processes and relational/self-development. Divided into four parts, chapters cover how to conceptualize clinical issues through a socio-emotional lens, the therapist’s role in assessment, goal-setting, clinical decision-making, the “how-to” of each of the three phases of the SERT clinical sequence, and self-of-the-therapist work and clinical research that inform the model. The clear writing style and detailed examples make complex social processes accessible, demonstrating how good practice is—and must be—equitable and socially responsible. This practical guide is essential reading for all mental health professionals, such as seasoned family therapists, counselors, psychologists, social workers, and students in training in these fields.

"A thoughtful, scholarly yet accessible account of emotion that speaks to current debates associated with the ‘affective turn’ in disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, geography and psychology... invaluable for anyone wanting to understand contemporary engagements with affect, emotion and feeling." - John Cromby, Loughborough University "A lucid, engaging, and thoroughly insightful review of current social scientific thinking on emotions in social life by a leading scholar in the field... The book is sure to become essential reading for both students and researchers interested in emotion" - Jason Hughes, University of Leicester "A masterful exposition of the links between emotions and social relations... Empirically rich and theoretically deep, this is a highly readable book. - Svend Brinkmann, University of Aalborg This book is a compelling and timely addition to the study of emotions, arguing that emotion is a response to the way in which people are embedded in patterns of relationship, both to others and to significant social and political events or situations. Going beyond the traditional discursive understanding of emotions, Burkitt investigates emotions as a complex and dynamic phenomenon that includes the whole self, body and mind, but which always occur in relation to others.