Praise for Love Skills
“Psychologist, couples therapist, and well-known author Linda Carroll combines her deep insight into relationships with an informative and interactive approach. The hands-on and heartfelt questionnaires allow helpful realizations to float to the surface of the reader’s consciousness. In sharing the answers with a partner, couples will reach deeper understanding, healing, and compassion for each other.”
— Ann Gadd, author of Sex and the Enneagram and The Enneagram of Eating
“As a millennial, I’ve observed that everyone tells us to love, but they never tell us how. Love Skills is a candid, readable, and concrete dive into not just how to find love but how to stay in it once you’ve arrived.”
— Zak Dychtwald, author of Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World
“Linda Carroll brings to her book the same warm, wise, and kind presence that she does in person. A truly gifted therapist, she gives us exercises and insights that penetrate self-destructive defenses and allow us to be our better selves and ultimately more loving (and loved) partners. These are love skills to be learned — and there is no one better qualified to teach them than Linda Carroll.”
— Pepper Schwartz, PhD, professor of sociology at the University of Washington and coauthor of Snap Strategies for Couples: 40 Fast Fixes for Everyday Relationship Pitfalls
“In a landscape of rare humility and honesty, Linda Carroll weaves together lived experience and clinical wisdom into an exceptional and valuable guidebook on the intricacies of love that is both enlightening and beautifully written.”
— Peter Yarrow, Peter, Paul and Mary
“In Love Skills Linda Carroll provides the map, compass, and survival kit for anyone journeying through the labyrinth of romantic love. Drawing from a range of therapeutic frameworks and tools, decades of clinical experience, and poignant field research from her own thirty-five-year marriage, Linda has distilled the wisdom of lifetimes into a comprehensive modern-day workbook full of growth-inducing to-do lists, insight-awakening questionnaires and quizzes, thought-provoking exercises, and other indispensable self-help tools for couples looking for clarity in their relationships. Love Skills is one of those rare, powerful books that, when used creatively and consistently, can genuinely help couples overcome common obstacles to loving and sustain a lasting bond.”
— Alicia Muñoz, author of No More Fighting and A Year of Us: A Couple’s Journal
“While Love Skills is a workbook companion to her acclaimed Love Cycles and is best used as a study guide to that book, it can also be a stand-alone guide to love. In addition to charts that evoke self-awareness and exercises that develop relational skills, Linda Carroll has included enough theory to illuminate the practice. We recommend this guide and the original text to all couples who want a clear path through the forest of challenges to the sunshine of a thriving relationship.”
— Harville Hendrix, PhD, and Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD, coauthors of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples and Making Marriage Simple
“A breakthrough among the confusing plethora of relationship books, this book is truly important — realistic, deeply personal, and packed not just with the wisdom of a seasoned therapist, but with real, practical tools.”
— Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, LLC, and author of The Blindspots Between Us
Also by Linda Carroll
Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love
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New World Library 14 Pamaron Way Novato, California 94949 |
Copyright © 2020 by Linda Carroll
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.
Text design by Tona Pearce Myers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
First printing, February 2020
ISBN 978-1-60868-623-0
Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-624-7
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper
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New World Library is proud to be a Gold Certified Environmentally Responsible Publisher. Publisher certification awarded by Green Press Initiative. |
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ForMy Family, who teach me about Wholehearted Love each day,and forKaren Lynn Randall, who has been there for all of it
Because I prayedthis word:I want.
— SAPPHO
Contents
1.Where Am I — and Where Do I Want to Be?
3.Which Love Cycle Stage Are You In?
4.Now What? Navigating Your Stage
11.Managing Defensiveness and Speaking Smartly
12.The Five Top Habits of Emotional Intelligence