Messages Workbook

Description

The original Messages taught you to listen well, disclose honestly, and express truthfully while communicating with others. This workbook helps you apply these skills specifically to different aspects of your life. Step-by-step worksheets, fill-in exercises, and case stories help you avoid communication pitfalls and make long-lasting, life-enhancing changes. The workbook extends the techniques of Messages to a wide range of situations: Exercises teach you to communciate with teens and children. They help facilitate partner understanding by exploring gender communication differences. The workbook guides you through challenging communication situations like talking through a power dynamic with a boss or a subordinate, with elders, or with people of different cultures. An important chapter applies emotion-regulation techniques from dialectical behavior therapy to communication, teaching you to express yourself effectively even when feeling emotionally unstable.

Martha Davis, PhD, was a psychologist in the department of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, CA, where she practiced individual, couples, and group psychotherapy for more than thirty years prior to her retirement. She is coauthor of Thoughts and Feelings. Patrick Fanning is a professional writer in the mental health field, and founder of a men's support group in Northern California. He has authored and coauthored eight self-help books, including Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, Couple Skills, and Mind and Emotions. Kim Paleg, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and El Sobrante, CA. She is on the faculty of John F. Kennedy University. She is a contributing author to the self-help classic When Anger Hurts and coedited the widely used professional book Focal Group Psychotherapy. She specializes in couples and family therapy and conducts workshops on parenting.

"Messages is a comprehensive handbook in a most important human skill--personal communication. Reading it made me feel like an enthusiastic partner in an achievable learning endeavor." --Virginia Satir