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celestelipkes 's review for:
Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking about Human Interactions
by Roberta M. Gilbert
3.5 stars! My husband read this book during his hospital chaplaincy training and references it frequently, so I had to see what all the fuss was about.
Cons: terrible title (this is a primer on Family Systems Theory, a psychological model, not a self-help book) and the first 1/4 of the text is very hand wavy. My remaining beef is really with the theory itself -- the obsession with sibling order, dismissal of transference as a tool, insistence on re-entering the family system without acknowledgment that this may be unsafe, lack of nuance around ethnic etc. identity factors, etc. -- and the typical "one size fits all" and "we fixed Freud" commentary which is apparently obligatory in every contemporary psychological model.
Pros: very approachable and thorough review of FST. Lots of extremely helpful sections on triangulation and various relationship patterns, including under/over functioning (truly, a personal attack). I especially appreciated the last section on the lived experience of various relationship types, including friendships and work relationships.
Overall this model seems like an extremely -- but not universally -- useful one, especially if someone is working with families in treatment or, like all of us, just happens to exist in a family and wants to know what the hell is going on.
Cons: terrible title (this is a primer on Family Systems Theory, a psychological model, not a self-help book) and the first 1/4 of the text is very hand wavy. My remaining beef is really with the theory itself -- the obsession with sibling order, dismissal of transference as a tool, insistence on re-entering the family system without acknowledgment that this may be unsafe, lack of nuance around ethnic etc. identity factors, etc. -- and the typical "one size fits all" and "we fixed Freud" commentary which is apparently obligatory in every contemporary psychological model.
Pros: very approachable and thorough review of FST. Lots of extremely helpful sections on triangulation and various relationship patterns, including under/over functioning (truly, a personal attack). I especially appreciated the last section on the lived experience of various relationship types, including friendships and work relationships.
Overall this model seems like an extremely -- but not universally -- useful one, especially if someone is working with families in treatment or, like all of us, just happens to exist in a family and wants to know what the hell is going on.