The High-Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy, and Validation Paperback – December 3, 2006

This is the most helpful book so far in the world on reducing conflicts and negative interactions in various relationships. Concepts in this book help improve behaviors not only in couples, but in other interpersonal relationships such as family, friends, work, community. There are two key concepts in this book, Accurate Expression and dealing with High Negative Emotional Arousal due to Invalidation.Be aware, in my opinion, this is a hard high-level book to understand. Being Ph.D. and completing most of known books on relationships, this book was not as easy to master as Gary Chapman's excellent books. It is like Quantum Mechanics of Relationship Psychology. I believe that there are 3 prerequisites.1. Be willing to change your own behavior. This is 90% of work. You can later teach your partner concepts of this book using Accurate Expressions.2. Understand the process of Mindfulness and use it routinely with your thoughts, spoken words and actions.3. Master Marsha Linehan's DBT training manual book because this book is based on using DBT skills.I got great help from my therapist who was trained in DBT. It is worth time and money to get help from professionals or friends so that you can better understand how to use methods described in this book.

As a licensed marriage and family therapist who has been DBT trained since 2004 and led weekly DBT groups for 8 years, I would say this is one of the best self-help books on marital problems. Although Marsha Linehan originally developed DBT for seriously suicidal clients, DBT skills can benefit everyone. If you think your spouse has symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), you may have read books that insinuate that your spouse will always make your life miserable and that you should, to preserve your own sanity, just get out of the relationship. This is in many cases not true. Contrary to popular opinion, borderline personality disorder is treatable. It is usually a result of someone who is naturally emotional by nature being subjected to prolonged abuse in childhood. I think of it as a severe form of post traumatic stress disorder.While it is normal to want to be close and attached to one's spouse, the person who has been abused in the past is conflicted in both wanting and fearing closeness. This is the source of the alternating clingy and angry behaviors. A person who really puts DBT into practice can make remarkable progress. For those of you married to people with BPD, recognize that, while they will always be somewhat emotional and dramatic, this can make life with them quite interesting. The point I want to stress is that DBT can help them greatly decrease their more distressing behaviors.There is a lot of misinformation out there about BPD, and even some therapists who should know better see it as a stigma. The good thing about this book is that it never mentions borderline personality disorder except in the bibliography. So you can use it to work with your BPD spouse without labeling him or her as the "sick one."

High Conflict Couple is a concise, easy to understand guide for couples seeking to deepen their relationship and ease their conflicts.Its tone is a bit crisper, cooler, and more analytical than most marriage guides. This is actually its strength, speaking to the analytical half of your relationship in a straight-forward way they will appreciate and understand even if they shy away from most relationship-help books as being too touchie-feelie. The message is the same as many guides, that validation (lingo for healthy supportive loving communication) is the key to a happy, intimate relationship-- and it is the key. This book helps approach that need from the angle of couples or individuals who have already been conflict-prone.The book has open-ended exercises that are useful if a bit vague, precise examples, and very good flow from chapter to chapter, start to finish. Even the layout is accessible with short measured segments that allow the reader to pause and reflect frequently.Pair this with The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert for a complete set of paperback marriage counseling: that book contains many accessible examples, detailed exercises, and 2-person activities to try with your partner. I highly recommend the combination of the two books.Regardless, if you're the emotional half of your relationship, get High Conflict Couple for your emotionally-challenged partner. If you're the analytical half, the guide will speak to you right away, and you'll wonder why nobody ever explained it to you in such a direct easy to understand way.Highly recommended whether you are in a happy relationship, a struggling one, or struggling to understand why a relationship failed.

Briefly: For anyone wanting to look at managing conflict in a relationship, with DBT in this case, this is a pretty easy to read book. Whilst validation is pertinent - there are quite a few people who just don't know how to validate their partner, it causes a lot of hurt and anger - the more important aspects, in my mind, were the chapters on emotional arousal and how easy it is to trigger arguments, and Fruzzetti's simple discussion/format of chain analysis. Plus there are practices within chapters to give readers food for thought/something to unpack.

this book is filled with helpful information and insight