When Anger Hurts Your Relationship

Psychologists Kim Paleg and Matthew McKay offer couples a variety of tools and strategies to reduce conflict, diffuse rage, and move beyond repeated confrontations to regain a loving relationship. Each chapter presents proven techniques to help couples experience respectful anger, reconcile differences, and begin to heal.

Publishers Weekly

Paleg and McKay, practicing clinical psychologists and coauthors of Couple Skills, pinpoint pain and a resulting sense of helplessness as the roots of anger. By outlining individuals' and couples' basic cycles of hurt and anger, the authors expose the cracks in the armor and the methods of breaking the cycles. Focusing on preventing escalation, managing anger when it arises and repairing the situation after an old pattern takes hold, they espouse a one-day-at-a-time process of swearing off anger (via tension-release exercises, practicing empathy and identifying defensiveness), learning de-escalation tools (a Repair Checklist, an Anger Coping Plan) and regaining trust (by changing speech habits and concertedly giving pleasure). (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kim Paleg, Ph.D., is a practicing psychologist specializing in couples and family therapy and codirector of the Redwood Center for Psychology Associates, Inc. in Berkeley, California. She is coauthor of several relationship self-help books, including Couple Skills and When Anger Hurts Your Kids.

Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is the clinical director of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services in San Francisco. McKay is coauthor of more than 14 self-help books, including When Anger Hurts, The Anger control Workbook, Couple Skills, and The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook. In private practice, he specializes in the treatment of anger, anxiety, and depression.