Intimate Couple


Book Description

As important as intimacy is in our personal and professional lives, intimacy as a theoretical and clinical factor still remains a phenomenon. Contributors to this work examine the many definitions of intimacy, putting forth a provocative discussion of the multi-faceted topic and offering the best possible clinical methods of creating intimacy and addressing its challenges.




The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm


Book Description

The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm explores the ongoing strength and insidious grip of couple-normativity across changing landscapes of law, policy and everyday life in four contrasting national contexts: the UK, Bulgaria, Norway and Portugal. By investigating how the couple-norm is lived and experienced, how it has changed over time, and how it varies between places and social groups, this book provides a detailed analysis of changing intimate citizenship regimes in Europe, and makes a major intervention in understandings of the contemporary condition of personal life. The authors develop the feminist concept of ‘intimate citizenship’ and propose the new concept of ‘intimate citizenship regime’, offering a study of intimate citizenship regimes as normative systems that have been undergoing profound change in recent decades. Against the backdrop of processes of de-patriarchalization, liberalization, pluralization and homonormalization, the ongoing potency of the couple-norm becomes ever clearer.




The Art of Intimate Marriage


Book Description

From a two-time nationally award winning sexuality researcher - The Art of Intimate Marriage. God's plan for sexual intimacy in marriage is the work of a Master artist and genuine intimacy is like a beautiful masterpiece. Your marriage is going well but you want to make your sex life better and you’re looking for help on how to do that. You want to know what God has to say about how to build a fulfilling sexual intimacy in your marriage. Your sexual relationship has been full of pain, discouragement, and frustration and you need some answers. You have some medical issues that are making sex difficult and you would like to rekindle experiencing mutually pleasurable sex. For these issues and more, The Art of Intimate Marriage provides direction and guidance on how to get there. Creating that masterpiece may mean learning God’s view of sex, gaining life-giving intimacy skills, and figuring out how to work through conflict in a way that creates deeper connection. It may also mean overcoming things in your background, healing things in your marriage, or dealing with those medical challenges. We have the opportunity to have a deeper understanding of God’s loving heart through being deeply known and erotically bonded with our spouse. The Art of Intimate Marriage gives us a road map to experience growth toward a more rewarding, spiritual sexual relationship.




The Intimate Couple


Book Description

Introduces a range of psychological and physical techniques designed to enhance sexual pleasure in any relationship




The Couple and Family Technology Framework


Book Description

Couples and families worldwide have a constant electronic connection to others, a fact that is influencing the concerns and issues they bring to therapy. The authors of this resource help mental health practitioners to better deal with concerns such as online infidelity, online dating, internet addictions, cyber bulling, and many more by introducing the Couple and Family Technology (CFT) framework, a multi-theoretical approach that doesn’t require clinicians to change their preferred clinical approach. The CFT framework acknowledges the ways in which couples navigate their relationship with technology and a partner simultaneously, and it attends to, and in some cases incorporates the role of technology in therapeutic ways. Included in the authors’ discussion of how different technologies affect relationships is • a survey of what individuals’ motivations of usage are • an examination of the specific issues that emerge in treatment • a study of the risks particularly relevant to intimate relationships, and • an introduction of the first-ever technology-based genogram. They also examine technological usage across different developmental points in a couple’s lifespan, with attention given throughout to people from various cultural backgrounds. Along with the CFT framework, the authors also introduce a new discipline of family research: Couple and Family Technology. This discipline integrates three broad perspectives in family science and helps therapists maintain a systemic focus in assessing and treating couples where issues of the Internet and new media are problematic. Online resources can be accessed by purchasers of the book and include videos, additional case studies, glossary, and forms.




Out of Touch


Book Description

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.




Gender-Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse


Book Description

This groundbreaking book on the gender-inclusive treatment of intimate partner abuse has been fully updated to reflect new and refined evidence-based approaches that have evolved since the first edition was published nearly ten years ago. It describes new treatment protocols that are strongly supported by current research that enables mental health practitioners to engage in a more nuanced-and gender inclusive conceptualization and treatment of intimate partner abuse in its many permutations. The book eschews the field's previous reliance on traditional domestic violence and treatment protocols to offer new paradigms that reflect the trend toward a more balanced, evidence-based and less heteronormative conceptualization of partner abuse. It presents the latest findings from the third installment of the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project. Included are new examples of evidence-based programs currently in existence and those that are in formative stages, fully updated exercises and handouts, new risk assessment instruments, and new definitions of evidence-based treatment. Of special note are several new appendices that include updated assessment forms, a victim safety plan, client workbook guidelines and exercises, resources and programs for court-ordered clients, and exercises for high conflict family violence parent groups. In addition, a new assessment protocol will be available as a free download. New to the Second Edition: Includes the latest findings from the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project Presents most current literature on risk assessment instruments Provides new definitions of evidence-based treatment regarding degree of rigor along with outcome data and newest relevant studies Discusses promising new group programs Includes a new assessment tool available as free download Describes several new, evidence-based gender-inclusive approaches Offers comprehensive appendices that reflect recent advances including newassessment forms, a victim safety plan, client workbook guidelines and exercises, resources and programs for court-ordered clients, and exercises for high conflict family violence parent groups




Intimate Partner Violence


Book Description

Since the 1970s the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) has been explained through the patriarchal desire of men to control and dominate women, but this gendered perspective limits both our understanding of IPV and its treatment. Intimate Partner Violence: New Perspectives in Research and Practice is the first book of its kind to present a detailed and rigorous critique of current domestic violence research and practice within the same volume. In this challenging new text, with contributions from the UK, the US, and Canada, the subject is assessed from a more holistic position. It provides a critical analysis of the issue of domestic violence including issues that are often not part of the mainstream discussion. Each of the chapters tackles a different area of research or practice, from a critical review of contemporary topics in domestic violence research, including a critical review of men’s use of violence in relationships, a consideration of male victims, IPV within the LGBTQ+ community, perceptions of perpetrators and victims, and IPV within adolescent populations. The second half of the book examines challenges and opportunities for professionals working in the field and includes an analysis of an evidence informed perpetrator programme, the challenges faced working with male victims, and a discussion of the impact of domestic violence on children. Culminating with a series of evidence-based recommendations to bridge the divide between academic and practitioner stakeholders and to inform future working practices, this is an essential resource for students and practitioners alike.




LGBTQ+ Intimate Partner Violence


Book Description

This book explores the unique issues involved in assessing, diagnosing, intervening, and treating intimate partner violence (IPV) in the LGBTQ+ population. Currently, there is little to no instruction regarding this topic in training programs, and this volume is the culmination of an effort to remedy this deficit. The authors draw upon clinical examples and research from the IPV programs in their own organization as well as external research to provide a comprehensive overview. Chapters span topics that include definitions of IPV, its history, relevant issues within the LGBTQ+ community, the unique facets of LGBTQ+ IPV and its assessment and diagnosis. Case examples indicate how an assessment should be carried out and how to develop appropriate and effective interventions and treatment plans. This book will empower clinicians to assess for and treat LGBTQ+ IPV whenever and wherever they encounter it.




The Intimate Mystery


Book Description

Dan B. Allender and Tremper Longman III have together written this brief, simple and engaging introduction to help couples build healthy and happy marriages. Following the "leave, weave and cleave" imagery of the Bible, they help couples learn how to leave their parents, weave a life together and cleave to each other.