Solving the Moment: A Collaborative Couple Therapy Manual

Dan Wile's final book distills and integrates the principles of Collaborative Couple Therapy as it evolved over his forty-five year career. He sees a couple problem as really two the problem itself and how partners talk or don't talk about it. How partners talk or don't talk -- how they fight or withdraw -- is often the main problem and the one with which couple therapists can best help them. Wile's focus is on solving the moment, by which he means turning the partners' fight or withdrawal into an intimate conversation. His signature method is talking for each partner in the couple as if he were that person, reframing their attack or disengagement with words that foster connection. Collaborative Couple Therapy encourages clients to have their say about every aspect of their therapy, empowering partners and giving the therapist the benefit of each partner's input. In creating a more equal, less hierarchical relationship between the therapist and partners, he models a relationship of equality within the couple. His manual helps therapists with specific interventions, offers the thinking behind them, and provides engaging dialogues as examples.