A clear, balanced, contemporary look at how relationships work, from leading researchers in the field. As the first text to fully capture the excitement of today's research findings on couples, Intimate Relationships answers fascinating questions: How do relationships work? Why are they so hard sometimes? What are the principles that guide them? How can we use what we know to make them better?
Although the challenge to the hegemonic status of the institution of marriage in India is grabbing the limelight in popular media, it has received comparatively less attention in the social sciences. This path-breaking collection presents an analysis of marriage from historical, social, cultural, psychological and legal perspectives. Some of the essays argue that marriage continues to retain its prime overwhelming importance in reproducing the social order and its claim to be the only legitimate structure of the family rather than one among many. Nevertheless, changes wrought by globalisation, by information technology and by the increasing social visibility of queer life forms and practices have had considerable impact on the homogeneous imagination of the 'Indian family', with the traditional marriage system as its base. The essays in this collection look behind and beyond the institutional framework of marriage to critique the structures of our everyday lives and to explore new horizons and possibilities in the domain of the intimate. The collection is divided into four parts, moving from a historical perspective to present-day concerns: Part I - 'Historicising Mar-riage: Marriages Are Made in Scriptures'; Part II - 'Contextualizing Marriage: Class, Caste, Masculinity and Violence'; Part III - 'Repre-senting Marriage: Sex, Conjugality and Videotapes' and Part IV - 'Recasting Marriage: Singlehood, Coupledom and Intimate Others'.
If human life, as the author argues, is a constant and desperate bid to compensate for our mortality, then the desire to love and to be loved is our greatest imagined panacea against the fact of our death. In modern Western society our problems have changed: now, with our stomachs full, our need to feel we are struggling to survive has become increasingly focussed on a growing dissatisfaction and insecurity in our personal relationships. Drawing on her 35 years' experience as an individual and group psychotherapist, Mavis Klein here elaborates her original theory of five basic personality types, ten compound types, and fifteen ways in which the basic types interact with each other in our relationships to others. She clearly elucidates the behaviours that disguise our often self-induced pains, and how these pains can be transmuted into our greatest talents and joy. This book addresses the reality of the world we are so often unwilling to accept: the irrational and violent world of shame, doubt, guilt, fear, love and hate. ,
Disabled people are routinely assumed to lack the capabilities and capacities to embody and experience sexuality and desire, as well as the agency to love and be loved by others, and build their own families, if they so choose. Centring on the sexual, intimate and erotic lives of disabled people, this book presents a rare opportunity to understand and ask critical questions about such widely held assumptions. In essence, this book is a collection of sexual stories, told by disabled people on their own terms and in their own ways. Stories that shed light on areas of disability, love and life that are typically overlooked and ignored. A sociological analysis of these stories reveals the creative ways in which disabled people manage and negotiate their sexual and intimate lives in contexts where these are habitually denied. In its calls for disabled people’s sexual and intimate citizenship, stories are drawn upon as the means to create social change and build more radically inclusive sexual cultures. In this ground breaking feminist critical disability studies text, The Intimate Lives of Disabled People introduces and contributes to contemporary debates around disability, sexuality and intimacy in the 21st century. Its arguments are relevant and accessible to researchers, academics, and students across a wide range of disciplines – such as sociology, gender studies, psychology, social work, and philosophy – as well as disabled people, their families and allies, and the professionals who work with and for them.
A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.
In The Dance of Intimacy, the bestselling author of The Dance of Anger outlines the steps to take so that good relationships can be strengthened and difficult ones can be healed. Taking a careful look at those relationships where intimacy is most challenged--by distance, intensity, or pain--she teaches us about the specific changes we can make to achieve a more solid sense of self and a more intimate connectedness with others. Combining clear advice with vivid case examples, Dr. Lerner offers us the most solid, helpful book on intimate relationships that both women and men may ever encounter.
Nothing destroys trust like sexual betrayal. Beyond broken vows, a woman who discovers that the man she loves has been viewing pornography or having an affair must deal with devastating blows to her self-image and self-worth. She must grapple with the fact that the man she thought she knew has lied and deceived her. She may even bear the brunt of shame and judgment when the people around her find out. Drawing from her experience both as a marriage and family therapist and a woman who personally experienced the devastation of sexual betrayal, Dr. Sheri Keffer walks women impacted by betrayal through the pain and toward recovery. She explains how the trauma of betrayal affects our minds, bodies, spirits, and sexuality. She offers practical tools for dealing with emotional triggers and helps women understand the realities of sexual addiction. And she shows women how to practice self-care, develop healthy boundaries, protect themselves from abuse or manipulation, and find freedom from the burden of shame and guilt.
Four decades of contributions to personality theory and family practice have earned Luciano L’Abate a worldwide reputation for therapeutic insights. Now he expands on his pathbreaking relational theory of personality to apply it to the twenty-first-century family in all its configurations. Personality in Intimate Relationships showcases L’Abate’s trademark elegant style and provocative ideas in his most accessible work to date. Based on Axes I and II of the DSM-IV, the book describes relationships along a readily identifiable continuum ranging from optimal functionality to severe pathology, linking the author’s conceptual framework to specific diagnostic strategies, therapeutic interventions, and prevention programs. L’Abate’s theory not only integrates individual and family theories and seemingly disparate schools of thought, but is also inclusive of nontraditional relationships—grandparent/grandchild dyads, adoptive families, same-sex couples, and others—that are often left out of the family literature. Among the key areas explored in the book: • Selfhood and self-differentiation • Confrontation and sharing of hurt feelings • Negotiating, bargaining, and problem-solving • Dealing with distance and closeness • Intimacy and the ability to love In addition, the reader is referred to complementary online appendices that supply helpful questionnaires, workbooks, and ideas for further applications. Personality in Intimate Relationships offers fresh perspective to all frontline practitioners as well as investigators in this area. It is also ideal for graduate courses in abnormal psychology and personal development.
