the dance of connection
... to us. Lerner gives many examples throughout the book about people who have had a very difficult time communicating with others. The book is not based on specific studies done on individuals; it is mostly all from her own family or from individuals that have come to her for counseling. She gives examples of many different types of relationships such as, relationships between parents, fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters, friends, married couples with and without children as well as relationships involving stepparents. I feel that she focused mainly on families because; “Our relationships in our first family are the most influential in our lives, and they are never simple. Here, we first discover what thoughts and feelings we can say out loud, or even claim as our own”(24). Lerner gives a few specific techniques on how to communicate. She talks about establishing a bottom line, which is the most difficult part of finding your “authentic voice”. Our bottom line is established so that we do not let people run all over us. Although we should firmly hold our bottom line we also must leave room to adjust it in certain situations. Another technique she gives is the “STOP rule”; when you feel that a conversation is leading up to an argument we should say “STOP” to the other person and take some time to calm down before beginning a hurtful conversation. I think that the book was written and organized in a way that was very easy and comfortable to read. I really liked the way that she used her own personal experiences instead of studies done by others, I thought that this made it a lot more realistic. This made the book a lot easier to relate to knowing that she is speaking from experience and not just giving information on random research studies. Even though the book was very interesting to read I felt like Lerner talked about the same things too many times throughout the book. I think that the book could have been reduced dramatically and still included the same amount of information. Another thing that I noticed was that it was very similar to “The Dance of Anger”, at times it seemed like all she did was take “The Dance of Anger” and reword it with some different people and situations. I am not sure that I would consider “The Dance of Connection” to be a very strong self-help book but it is very interesting to read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is involved in a long-term relation...