Getting Together and Staying Together [Paperback]

The book has an interesting history. It is written by a well-known and very experienced psychiatrist and his wife is co-author. It is a rewrite of a book that Dr. Glasser himself published in 1995 practically on the eve of his marriage to Carleen. The new version collates the wisdom of both their professional lives and especially of their married life together. As such it is a wonderful mixture of the therapist's eye and a couple's down-to-earth daily experience. Where the original "Staying Together" started from a Choice Theory perspective and applied it to marriage, this new book takes different marriage experiences as the starting point and processes the experiences in terms of Choice Theory. The mixture of e-mail messages, discussions, therapy examples and courageous self-disclosure by both authors bring this book to life and give it a very practical value. It even has a chapter on the surprisingly neglected topic of "sex after marriage".

Drawing interesting comparisons between marriage and friendship the authors show how the dangers of external control psychology creep so easily into married life. They speak of the "seven deadly habits" (criticism, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and bribing) that hasten this death of marriage. They also point to how certain differences in a couple's needs intensities can make it more difficult to have a good relationship.

This book has a lot to offer any relationship but it would be fair to say that it deals most specifically with the more formal structures that encircle and threaten the marriage bond. The Glassers offer both the theoretical base and practical suggestions for improving, even resuscitating, a relationship. Most important of all, the book offers the reader a total shift in perspective. It elaborates a truly possible but not necessarily easy answer to the "joyless tedium" of an endangered relationship. It invites each person to take control of what the person really can control. One area it does not deal with explicitly is the changing nature of the relationship when children are born but it is a relatively easy matter for the reader to apply the Choice Theory principles to these and other situations.

I would very much recommend this book to anyone, married or not. Indeed it would provide excellent discussion material for pre-marriage courses and even for social and personal classes for young people. This is one of those rare books where the authors are preaching what they already practise ... and it's very definitely "for better".

Of Dr. Glasser's published works, besides GTST, I have so far read the following: Schools without Failure, Control Theory, Choice Theory, The Language of Choice Theory, Reality Therapy in Action, What Is This Thing Called Love?, and Fibromyalgia: Hope from a Completely New Perspective. Based on reading all these books, my opinion is that if you are just discovering Dr. Glasser, GTST is probably the very best of his many works for your initial introduction to choice theory for the following reasons: (1) the book is relatively short; (2) it is easy to read; (3) it goes very concisely and clearly into every aspect of choice theory; (4) the information in it applies to every kind of relationship, not just marriage.

I am very impressed with Dr. Glasser's chosen writing style. I have not been privileged to hear Dr. Glasser speak in person, but my guess is that the reason his prose is so extremely accessible is that he writes in the same sensitive, direct, caring voice he uses to train therapists and to counsel his clients. As he so profoundly states in this and many of his other books on choice theory, the foundation of all progress in therapy is the client's trust in the therapist. And trust is based in several important qualities of the therapist, including: simplicity, honesty, directness, empathy and compassion.

Another cornerstone of Dr. Glasser's remarkable ideas is the highly unusual belief that the purpose of therapy is to get done with it as quickly and effectively as possible. I have spent many frustrating years observing fellow mental health professionals who believe (because they were trained to, and because it is so very profitable a practice) that it is "simply not possible to begin any meaningful therapy until adequate time has been spent discussing the scope of the client's problem." Unfortunately for therapy clients, "adequate" is usually defined as a minimum of five, and usually ten, 50-minute sessions of rehashing the client's entire life history billed out at $100-250/hour. In delightful contrast, Dr. Glasser states that from the very first second that he meets a new client, he wants to get the therapy moving toward teaching the client self-reliance based in self-responsibility. In pursuit of this goal, he refuses to waste time mulling over the client's painful past. He believes a therapist's proper focus is what is making the client miserable, right now, and that this is invariably trouble with an important relationship.

In short, the overall goal of Dr. Glasser's unique therapy (called "reality therapy") is to lead his clients to see that they are =not= helpless, hopeless victims of fate. Instead, he assists them in discovering that they have the wherewithal, at all times and places, to examine the current choices they are making, figure out if those choices are causing more pain than they are eliminating, and make new and better choices as needed.

I would highly recommend this wonderful book to you if you feel you are having trouble achieving close, intimate, emotional connections with others (either through not having a close relationship at all, or not feeling intimacy with someone who is supposed to be very close to you, such as a spouse). Also, if you read this book or any other written by Dr. Glasser and are impressed with his ideas, you can get a referral for a therapist in your area trained at the William Glasser Institute by contacting the institute directly via the internet. (I am not permitted to provide the web site here, but I located it easily for myself by using a search engine.)