Navigating Your Relationship

This unique look at what intimacy really means is rich and compelling. For couples struggling this book offers valuable tools to take a fresh look at their relationship.-Daniel Gottlieb Ph.D. family therapist radio host and author Everyone's relationship sails through choppy waters at some point. If couples learn to see each other as co-captains -- both needing to be in control of their emotional destinies -- even the toughest storms can be weathered. Author H. Laurence Schwab M.F.T. offers some of his most imaginative tools and techniques from nearly three decades of marriage and family therapy to help you and your partner make it through stormy seas. Within this informative and entertaining book you'll learn: - Why a boat is a perfect relationship metaphor - How to better understand what your partner is going through - Why it is not always bad to get lost in the FOG - How to define your goals-and how to know when you reach them   H. Laurence Schwab M.F.T. has nearly thirty years of experience as a marriage and family therapist in private practice as well as clinic and hospital settings and has worked with hundreds of couples. This clinical experience and a family legacy of sailing and visual literacy have created the foundation of his book and its emphasis on how small people feel and how big they look at the same time. Schwab a married father of three grown children with two grandsons also supervises other therapists and conducts men's groups and leadership retreats. "Groundbreaking! In Navigating Your Relationship: A Voyage for Couples Schwab illustrates how many live their relationship 'feeling small AND looking big'. He empowers couples to create their unique roadmap for discovery and dialogue." - R. Dandridge Collins Ph. D. author of the non-fiction classic The Trauma Zone: Trusting God for Emotional Healing "This is a practical systemically oriented guide that couples and clinicians working with couples will find helpful in navigating the complex often turbulent waters of intimate relationships. Through his creative use of metaphor- building and steering a boat- Schwab targets significant aspects of relationships such as defining each partner's limits of responsibility viewing intimacy as a celebration of differences accepting our own vulnerability and bringing personal integrity to our interactions in the present. The focus on viewing challenges and conflicts as opportunities to experiment with new skills and remaining open to new ways of thinking is a refreshing shift from the conventional way of looking at human behavior in terms of fixed realities and pathology." - John Brendler MSW ACSW LMFT family and marital therapist and founder of Building Bridges a multidisciplinary holistic healing context in Media PA co-author of Madness Chaos and Violence: Therapy with Families at the Brink teacher leader of supervision groups and international seminar leader in family therapy recognized expert in dealing with dangerous symptoms destructive relationships and families in serious trouble.