The Dance of Connection

Written by Harriet Lerner

Narrated by Harriet Lerner

Bestselling author Harriet Lerner focuses on the challenge and the importance of being able to express one's ""authentic voice"" in intimate relationships.

The key problem in relationships, particularly over time, is that people begin to lose their voice. Despite decades of assertiveness training and lots of good advice about communicating with clarity, timing, and tact, women and men find that their greatest complaints in marriage and other intimate relationships are that they are not being heard, that they cannot affect the other person, that fights go nowhere, that conflict brings only pain. Although an intimate, long-term relationship offers the greatest possibilities for knowing the other person and being known, these relationships are also fertile ground for silence and frustration when it comes to articulating a true self. And yet giving voice to this self is at the center of having both a relationship and a self. Much as she did in THE MOTHER DANCE, Lerner will approach this rich subject with tales from her personal life and clinical work, inspiring and teaching readers to speak their own truths to the most important people in their lives.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 5, 2005
• ISBN: 9780060853044

Harriet Lerner

Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., is one of our nation’s most loved and respected relationship experts. Renowned for her work on the psychology of women and family relationships, she served as a staff psychologist at the Menninger Clinic for more than two decades. A distinguished lecturer, workshop leader, and psychotherapist, she is the author of The Dance of Anger and other bestselling books. She is also, with her sister, an award-winning children's book writer. She and her husband are therapists in Lawrence, Kansas, and have two sons.

Reviews for The Dance of Connection

[Rick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So many practical tips that I wish I had known much earlier in my life

[DJ · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Listened to this 1.5 & 1.8 speed, a lot of good insight in to our mysterious inner world of human relations and connections. Offers a lot of real relatable stories as well as explanations on why we react the way we do and what we can do to act more inline with our truest self. I would like to purchase a physical copy to highlight a lot of great quotes

[Gibelinha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent and insightful read. Very recommended for everyone, since relating to people is inevitable, and good relationships make or break the quality of our lives.

[dreaminginfiction · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't really enjoy this book so much, every chapter (and sometimes more then one in each chapter) was a different lead character and some flashback chapters. It was really confusing and the outcome just wasn't wasn't worth it all to me.

[mawshimp · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Was very disjointed at the beginning - lots of characters. Makes you think.

[gjbean · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Love Laura Lippman. High school group of thee girls, one girl brings a gun shoots Cat Hartigan dead and figure out the rest. A bit slow.

[ribojolyn · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

relate

[citygirl_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Why: I try to be open-mind about mysteries and thrillers published in mass paperback if it’s an author I don’t know, but I don’t really succeed. I chose this one because I’ve recently become addicted to HBO’s soulful, gritty show, The Wire, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious. Dennis Lehane and Richard Price have written for the Wire. Lippman is married to the show’s creator/head writer, David Simon. Now I know you cannot assume one spouse’s talent in an area matches the other (e.g., Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra; Roseanne and Tom Arnold; Whitney and Bobby; Ricky and Lucy Ricardo). But frequently they are in the same league: James Carville and Mary Matalin; Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins; Kurt and Courtney? (But I for one think Live Through This is brilliant and I do not think Kurt wrote it. Sexist!)I digress.Based on the reading of this one book, Lippman is not in her husband’s league. It is not a bad book, not at all. I turned the pages very quickly. I wanted to know whodunnit and why. It’s just that after years of reading mysteries with literary aspirations and literary fiction that deals in clues and bodies, a straight genre mystery/thriller seems flat. The characters could have come from Central Casting; they had very few insights; they didn’t view the world through apt and original metaphors; and I won’t remember any of their names next week.I don’t regret the experience, but I’ll be looking for new mystery writing elsewhere.

[lenoreva · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Best friends Josie, Perri and Kat go into the bathroom at their high school. Shots are fired. One emerges with a minor injury, one with a life-threatening one, and one is dead. What happened is the mystery at the heart of this riveting thriller.After What the Dead Know, I was excited to read another thriller by Laura Lippman. This one had wonderful character development – I really got to know the three girls as well as a great many secondary characters (such as the huffy, hypochondriac school secretary, rendered so well in just two short scenes). It was well paced and very readable. BUT – and this is a giant but – the reveal is just lame, which is a big letdown after getting so into the story. It’s hard to recommend any book that has an unsatisfactory ending, but for a thriller, it’s especially problematic. If a subpar ending to an otherwise well written and exciting story doesn’t bother you, go for it, but if it does, you might want to steer clear.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This reminded me of Jodi Picoult. First you know what happens and then the author unravels the motive and story. Interesting and involving it makes you think about the power of popularity and the problems when people feel a need to fit in spaces they shouldn't.Josie, Perri and Kat are best friends. When one of them comes into school with a gun, one dies, one is seriously injured and another wounded. Who is to blame and why did they do this. It also discusses some of the issues of what happens when best friends drift apart.

[darla_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story starts with three teenage girls, Perri, Josie, and Kat, locked in a school bathroom with a gun--Kat's dead; Perri has been shot in the face and is not expected to live; Josie's been shot in the foot. It appears that Perri killed Kat, then Perri and Josie struggled over the gun and Josie was shot, then Perri turned the gun on herself.But the evidence doesn't add up: why are there bloody footprints leading away from the locked door? Where are Josie's shoes? Where are all three girls' cell phones?The book bounces all over place and time, between different POVs, delving deep into each one, showing the development of the girls' friendship until a year earlier when there's an abrupt break between Perri and Kat. And despite the nonlinear progression of the story, it works, for the most part, because the psychological suspense is high and the characters are realistic and familiar (at least to anyone who is, has, or has been a teenage girl).My only problems were first, that there were a few too many characters, too many POVs. I didn't see a lot of point to teacher Alexa Cunningham's POV, for example--her scenes were very in-depth, but she seemed to be only peripherally involved, if at all, in the events leading up to the shooting.And then there was the ending. I don't want to spoil it, but it felt flat and anticlimactic. And maybe that was the point--that life doesn't always have a dramatic point. I can accept that--it just doesn't make me love the book.Overall, I loved the feel of the book: that somewhat dream-hazed, suspenseful, close-up portraits of how 3 teenage girls ended up dead or wounded. If it had been a movie, it would be an artsy one, with lots of out-of-focus close-ups. It's different from my usual reading, which is always a good thing, and I was really immersed in it up until nearly the very end.

[bookwormteri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Three girls, best friends since grade school, are involved in a high school shooting. When the police get the bathroom door open, one is fatally wounded, one dead, and the other has a gunshot in her foot. How did this happen? Maybe more importantly, why?I absolutely could not put this book down, I HAD to know what had happened between these three girls. This was a gripping novel and does not disappoint.