The Kickass Couple: 7 Secrets to Transform Your Relationship
Dr. Gloria Lee
Brentwood Counselling Centre (2021)
ISBN 978-1922597830
Reviewed by Jill Rey for Reader Views (12/2021)
After years of learning and practicing, Dr. Gloria Lee shares her wisdom with the masses. Working with clients in new relationships or weathered ones, young couples or old, boyfriend/girlfriend or married with kids, the author learned that no couple is immune to issues. However, Dr. Lee shows readers a new layer of their relationship and helps readers to better understand the situation, starting with our earliest relationships with family, and going all the way through to our most intimate partnerships. Using the attachment theory to unravel the sticking points, she guides readers to becoming a kickass couple.
In each chapter, Dr. Lee begins by being vulnerable with her audience, opening up about her own tough upbringing and what it meant for her and her sibling’s relationships. Then she shares research and practical advice for each topic she touches on, followed by a real-life example of a couple she’s helped and how we can cultivate and apply these skills to our own repertoires.
The nine succinct chapters within “The Kickass Couple” left me feeling energized and more understanding of myself and my partner. Despite feeling no “issues” in our coupling, I found myself relating to some of the stories and asking my partner deep questions about his upbringing, childhood, and role-model relationships. By using attachment theory, Dr. Lee breaks everything down and has us examining our own relationships overs the years; from parent/child to exes to present day, no stone is left unturned in her quest to give everyone the tools necessary to be a kickass couple.
During several chapters, after pulling my spouse aside to ask about his experiences, both with me and with his own parents, we ended up examining our own fights, communication issues, and upbringing through the guidance of Dr. Lee. When all was said and done, we felt like we came out of this book more whole and more understanding of each other and our deeper relationship.
Dr. Lee freely shares her years of expertise as a therapist, as well as her own relationship challenges and the patterns of her many siblings, to show readers—rather than just tell them—how these experiences affect them and how they can overcome everything in their quest to be truly kickass.
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