Feeling Good Together: The Secret to Making Troubled Relationships Work - Softcover

Burns M.D., David D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767920821 ISBN 13: 9780767920827

Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Based on twenty-five years of clinical experience and groundbreaking research on more than 1,000 individuals, Feeling Good Together presents an entirely new theory of why we have so much trouble getting along with each other, and provides simple, powerful techniques to make relationships work.

We all have someone we can’t get along with—whether it’s a friend or colleague who complains constantly; a relentlessly critical boss; an obnoxious neighbor; a teenager who pouts and slams doors, all the while insisting she’s not upset; or a loving, but irritating spouse. In Feeling Good Together, Dr. David Burns presents Cognitive Interpersonal Therapy, a radical new approach that will help you transform troubled, conflicted relationships into successful, happy ones.

Dr. Burns’ method for improving these relationships is easy and surprisingly effective. In Feeling Good Together, you’ll learn how to:

- Stop pointing fingers at everyone else and start looking at yourself.
- Pinpoint the exact cause of the problem with any person you’re not getting along with.
- And solve virtually any kind of relationship conflict almost instantly.

Filled with helpful examples and brilliant, user-friendly tools such as the Relationship Satisfaction Test, the Relationship Journal, the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, the Intimacy Exercise, and more, Feeling Good Together will help you enjoy far more loving and satisfying relationships with the people you care about.

You deserve rewarding, intimate relationships. Feeling Good Together will show you how.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David D. Burns, MD, is an adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and has served as Visiting Scholar at Harvard Medical School. His bestselling book, Feeling Good, has sold over four million copies.

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Chapter One
What the Experts Say

   We all want friendly, rewarding relationships with other people, but we often end up with the exact opposite—hostility, bitterness, and distrust. Why is this? Why can't we all just get along?
   There are two competing theories. Most experts endorse the "deficit theory." According to this theory, we can’t get along because we don't know how. In other words, we fight because we lack the skills we need to solve the problems in our relationships. When we were growing up, we learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, but there weren't any classes on how to communicate or solve relationship problems. 
   Other experts believe that we can’t get along because we don't really want to. This is called the "motivational theory." In other words, we fight because we lack the motivation to get close to the people we're at odds with. We end up embroiled in hostility and conflict because with the battle is rewarding.
The Deficit Theory
Most mental health professionals, including clinicians and researchers, endorse the deficit theory. They're convinced that we wage war simply because we don't know how to make love. We desperately want loving, satisfying relationship but lack the skills we need to develop them.
   Of course, different experts have different ideas about what the most important interpersonal skill deficits are. Behavior therapists, for example, believe that our problems getting along result from a lack of communication and problem-solving skills. So when someone criticizes us, we may get defensive when we should be listening. We may pout and put the other person down instead of sharing our feelings openly, or we may resort to nagging and coercion in order to get our way. We don't use systematic negotiation or problem-solving skills, so the tensions escalate.
A related theory attributes relationship conflict to the idea that men and women are inherently different. This theory was popularized by Deborah Tannen in her bestselling book, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, and by John Gray in his bestselling book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. These authors argue that men and women can't get along because they use language so differently. The idea is that women use language to express feelings, whereas men use language to solve problems. So when a woman tells her husband that she's upset, he may automatically try to help her with the problem that's bugging her because that's how his brain is wired. But she simply wants him to listen and acknowledge how she feels, so she gets more upset when he tries to "help" her. They both end up feeling frustrated and misunderstood. You may have observed this pattern in yourself and someone you're not getting along with, like your spouse. 
   Cognitive therapists have a different idea about the deficits that lead to relationship problems. They emphasize that all of our feelings result from our thoughts and attitudes, or "cognitions." In other words, the things other people do—like being critical or rudely cutting in front of us in traffic—don't actually upset us. Instead, we get upset because of the way we think about these events.

The Ten Distortions that Trigger Conflict
 

1.All-or-Nothing Thinking
Description: You look at the conflict, or the person you're not getting along with, in absolute, black-and-white categories.  Shades of grapy do not exist.
Example: You tell yourself that the person you're mad at is a complete zero with no redeeming features. Or, if your relationship breaks up, you may think that it was a total failure.
2. Overgeneralization
Description: You view the current problem as a never-ending pattern of frustration, conflict and defeat.
Example: You tell yourself, "She'll always be like that."
3.Mental Filter
Description: You catalogue the other person's faults, dwell on all the negative things she or he has every done or said to you, and filter out or ignore all the other person's good qualities.
Example: You tell your spouse, "This is the tenth time I've told you to carry out the trash." Or, "How many times do I have to remind you not to leave your dirty socks on the floor!?"
4.Discounting the Positive
Description: You insist that the other person's good qualities or actions don't count.
Example: When someone gives you a complement, you may tell yourself that he's just being nice and doesn't really mean it. Or, if someone you're fighting with does something positive, you may tell yourself that he's trying to manipulate you.
5.Jumping to Conclusions
Description: You jump to conclusions that may not be warranted by the facts. There are three common patterns:
 Mind-Reading. You assume that you know what makes the other person tick and how they feel about you.
You tell yourself that a friend is totally self-centered and only wants to use you. 
 Reverse Mind-Reading. You may tell yourself that the other person should know what you want and how you feel without having to tell him.
You tell your spouse, "You should have known how I was feeling!"
 Fortune-Telling. You tell yourself that the situation in hopeless and that the other person will continue to treat you in a shabby way, no matter what.
Example: You tell yourself that the person you're not getting along with will never change.
6. Magnification and Minimization
Description: You blow the other person's faults way out of proportion and shrink the importance of his or her positive qualities.
Example: During an argument, you may blurt out, "I can't believe how stupid you are!"
7. Emotional Reasoning
Description: You reason from how you feel.
Example: You may feel like the other person is a loser and conclude that she or he really is a loser. Or, because you feel hurt, angry, and mistrustful, you conclude that the other person is trying to hurt you or take advantage of you.
8. Should Statements
Description: You criticize yourself or other people with "shoulds," "shouldn'ts," "oughts," "musts," and "have tos." There are two common patterns:
Other-Directed Shoulds. You tell yourself that other people shouldn't feel and act the way they do, and that they should be the way you expect them to be. Other-Directed Shoulds trigger feelings of anger, resentment, and frustration when things don't go the way you expected..
"You've got no right to feel that way!" Or "You shouldn't say that. It's unfair!"
Self-Directed Shoulds. You tell yourself that you shouldn't have made that mistake or shouldn't feel the way you do. Self-Directed Shoulds trigger feelings of shame, inadequacy, and depression.
Example: You withdraw and give up instead of solving the problem that's bothering you.
9. Labeling
Description: You label the other person as a "jerk" or worse. You see his or her entire essence as negative, with no redeeming features
Example: "She's such a bitch!" Or, "He's an asshole!"
10. Blame
Description: Instead of pinpointing the cause of a problem, you assign blame. There are two patterns:
Other-Blame. You blame the other person and deny your own role in the problem.
You tell your spouse, "It's all your fault!" Then you get angry, frustrated and resentful.
Self-Blame. You feel guilty and worthless because you blame yourself for the problem, even if it isn't entirely your fault.
Example: You tell yourself, "It's all my fault!" Then you use all your energy beating up on yourself instead of finding out more about how the other person is feeling ad trying to solve the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0767920821
• ISBN 13: 9780767920827
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland