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Lean on Me: The Power of Positive Dependency in Intimate Relationships
By Dr. Marion Solomon
Published by Simon & Schuster

In this explosive, ground-breaking book, noted psychotherapeutic marital therapist Dr. Marion Solomon shatters the culturally pervasive myth that dependency is an illness--and convincingly argues that dependency in a relationship is not only healthy but necessary in order to lead a satisfying life.

After thirty years of experience in helping couples, Marion F. Solomon believes the single most important lesson for strenghtening relationships is abandoning the misconception that dependency signifies a childlike neediness and that self-sufficiencey is the hallmark of psychological health. Loving too much is not the problem, insists Dr. Solomon. The problem arises from thinking our choices are restricted to solitary self-sufficiency or pathological co-dependence.

Introducing a hopeful and uplifting new approach, Lean on Me offers couples a novel and unexpected route to love--one that works. The first step is to stop denying the need for dependency and then, with the aird of her \"Ten Rules for Positive Dependency,\" Dr. Solomon helps steer readers along the pathway to better communication, strengthening trust, and deepening capacity for sharing and intimacy.

Everyone wants to be allowed at times to be taken care of, to feel small and vulnerable yet secure in the protective embrace of a partner. By recognizing these needs as universal, and understanding that both men and women want to be touched, held, nurtured, and affirmed by someone they can depend on, Lean on Me helps couples to discover how \"positive dependency\" can--and will--forever change their relationship and their lives.

Lean on Me presents a persuasive case for interdependence over independence and is a book that will not only educate but liberate as well.

Price: $12.00
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Narcissism and Intimacy: Love and Marriage in an Age of Confusion
By Marion F. Solomon
Published by Norton

In our culture we demand a great deal from our intimate relationships--and we are often disappointed. This book not only reveals the social and psychodynamic factors that lead to marital unhappiness, but also offers guidelines for change.

Dr. Solomon looks at relationships from many perspectives. She starts by uncovering certain pervasive narcissistic myths and exploring what it means to be intimate in a culture that values autonomy and self-fulfillment above all. Drawing upon both psychodynamic family systems and object relations theories, she shows that experiences in early childhood can lead to narcissistic vulnerability in later relationships. Case examples from her practice clarify how two individuals' feeling states and defenses mesh in the marital system and how the attempt to defend against emotional injury creates barriers to intimacy.

The second part of the book focuses on marital treatment. The therapy room becomes a safe haven where both marital partners can experience the therapist's empathic understanding. In this context the fragile self of each partner is enhanced and dangerous emotions are contained and etoxified. As partners learn to listen to one another, rather than jumping in to assign blame, they gradually come to serve important functions for one another. in a particularly interesting chapter Solomon interprets rages, affairs, and addictions as expressions of overwhelming narcissistic vulnerability and offers guidance in managing such threatening acting-out behaviors.

The book is sprinkled with case vignettes from the author's practice. Since narcissism exists on a continuum and affects all of us, readers are likely to recognize their patients, their friends--and themselves in these cases.

The author, clearly in favor of supporting and treating the marriage when couples seek marital therapy, promotes individual growth and development within the security of an ongoing relationship. Weaving together threads from many sources, she offers a societal critique, a theory, and a method of intervention that will help both therapists and couples deepen the bonds of intimacy.

Price: $15.95
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The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice
Marion Solomon, PhD, Diana Fosha, PhD & Daniel Siegel, MD
Published by W.W. Norton

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience to better understand emotion. We are hardwired to connect with one another, and we connect through our emotions. Our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them.

Normal human development relies on the cultivation of relationships with others to form and nurture the self-regulatory circuits that enable emotion to enrich, rather than enslave, our lives. And just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart the fabric of family and psyche, the emotions can become powerful catalysts for the transformations that are at the heart of the healing process.

In this book, the latest addition to the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, leading neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, therapy researchers, and clinicians illuminate how to regulate emotion in a healthy way. A variety of emotions, both positive and negative, are examined in detail, drawing on both research and clinical observations. The role of emotion in bodily regulation, dyadic connection, marital communication, play, well-being, health, creativity, and social engagement is explored. The Healing Power of Emotion offers fresh, exciting, original, and groundbreaking work from the leading figures studying and working with emotion today.

Contributors include: Jaak Panksepp, Stephen W. Porges, Colwyn Trevarthen, Ed Tronick, Allan N. Schore, Daniel J. Siegel, Diana Fosha, Pat Ogden, Marion F. Solomon, Susan Johnson, and Dan Hughes. .

Price: $37.50
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