Therapy with couples on the brink of relationship dissolution involves unique challenges. Partners present with high levels of conflict, low levels of intimate connection, disdain and discouragement, and limited patience or hope. These couples have often tried therapy without lasting success, and announce that "this is our last chance". Partners want to see evidence in the first session that the therapist can offer something new and that change is possible.

Peter Fraenkel presents a practical, creative, integrative approach that combines action-and insight-oriented techniques to help last-chance couples manage conflict, modulate intense negative emotions, address power struggles, develop mutual compassion, and restore emotional intimacy and pleasurable connection. Special attention is paid to developing a collaborative therapeutic alliance when partners have little motivation for therapy or faith that it can be effective. Through engaging in "nonbinding experiments in possibility", partners can then better evaluate whether to "stay or go".

About the Author
Peter Fraenkel Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at City College of New York; former faculty at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and NYU Medical Center; and is in private practice in New York City. He is the author of Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage: Four Steps to Getting Back on Track (2011, Palgrave-Macmillan), and co-authored The Relational Trauma of Incest: A Family-Based Approach to Treatment (2001, Guilford). Dr. Fraenkel lectures and conducts therapist trainings internationally. He received the American Family Therapy Academy's 2012 award for Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy. He is a former Vice President and current Board Member of AFTA, Board Member, Minuchin Center for the Family, and a reviewer for several family therapy journals.


Book Information
ISBN 9781324016250
Author Peter Fraenkel
Format Hardback
Page Count 432
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 752g
Dimensions(mm) 239mm * 160mm * 36mm