Kathryn Elliott

And they lived happily ever after... It's a longing inside each of us. Be assured that it is your destiny to live happily ever after. It will take love and skill. We know. We believed in our destiny. As couple therapists who had longed for a great love and finally found each other, we, James Elliott and Kathryn Elliott, shared what we came to call a high-voltage soulmate relationship. It was marked by intense closeness and depth communication; personal growth and heart-stirring romance. We learned from our experiences how to make relationships work; then added solid theory, along with practical skills. Jim and I both believed that our fulfillment was more than a personal one. We believe we are to be a sign to you and a guideThis guide is for you who have found your love and want to keep that love alive. It's also for you who have lost hope. In the face of that discouragement, we have one thing to say to you: Your history is NOT your destiny. How can we say that? Because we know that relationships are our grand opportunity for learning. And for growth. The Kickass Guide came into being during the last three years of our relationship, after Jim had suffered a debilitating stroke. We distilled what we had learned into a daily blog of soulmate skills. Now, after Jim's death, we bring you the wisdom we learned in this daily guide packed with powerful relationship skills. Whether you're searching for your soulmate or have found your love, The Kickass Guide to Happily Ever After will be your day-by-day companion in forging your own happily ever after.

Recent relationship science research finds that intense, satisfying romantic love is a real phenomenon occurring in couples. Creating Optimal Relationships: Use of the Voltage Concept with Couples provides the field of marriage and family therapy with the first model for assisting couples to sustain bliss for a lifetime. The voltage concept, based on over forty years of clinical research, uses a skills-based approach from Anthetic Relationship Therapy. By providing psychodynamic skills for facilitating each partner’s psychological growth, the psychological infrastructure is then achieved for supporting optimal relating skills. The voltage concept presents a useful dichotomy of closeness levels to which partners aspire. Couples who want a more surface relationship fit a Low-Voltage Relationship model marked by less emotional intensity. With such couples, minimal skills can be taught to reduce any conflict that brought them to therapy. High-Voltage couples desire great emotional depth and receive skills to help them achieve it. Perhaps even more valuable, the voltage vocabulary equips clinicians and partners in understanding a common source of couple conflict; that is, the voltage mismatch. The book offers options for treatment when a voltage discrepancy exists in the couple.