| Special Acknowledgment to Laura Torbet | p. xi |
| Acknowledgments | p. xiii |
| Introduction | p. xv |
| A Personal Note ... How the Book Works | p. xv |
| Being Human, Being Single | |
| What's Wrong with Being Single? | p. 3 |
| Singledom: A Neglected Rite of Passage | |
| Redefining Singleness | |
| A Better Way | |
| It's Never Too Late to Be Single | |
| Forever Single | |
| We've Gotta Have It | |
| The Problem with Singles | |
| Finding a Love to Keep | |
| Your Mission: Be Prepared | |
| Forget the Mating Game! | |
| What's Really Going on in Your Relationships? | p. 18 |
| What's Really Going On in Relationships? | |
| Enter the Unconscious | |
| The Imago: Our Ghost Partner | |
| The Price of Ignorance | |
| Doing It Differently | |
| Exercise: Self-Knowledge Inventory | |
| Learning from Past Relationships | |
| Exercise: Imago Preview | |
| Exercise: Relationship Frustrations | |
| Exercise: Your Unconscious Relationship | |
| The Human Journey | p. 35 |
| The Cosmic Journey: Yearning for Connection | |
| Clues to Our Connectedness | |
| We Want It Back | |
| The Evolutionary Journey: Yearning for Aliveness | |
| New Mind, Old Brain | |
| The Basic Drives: Safety First | |
| Expressing Full Aliveness | |
| In Quest of Full Aliveness | |
| We Can't Do It Alone | |
| Commitment to Wholeness | |
| The Imago Puzzle I: Childhood Nurturing | |
| Growing Pains: Uncovering the Wounds of Childhood | p. 51 |
| The Lifelong Pursuit of Wholeness | |
| Becoming a Detective | |
| Different Strokes: Nature vs. Nurture | |
| The Stages of Development: Finding the Weak Link | |
| The Adult Child: Why Is It Important to Know Where We Got Stuck? | |
| Attachment and Exploration: Getting Securely Connected | p. 63 |
| Attachment: The Struggle to Exist | |
| Adapting to Deficit Nurturing: Coping Mechanisms | |
| The Clinging Child: Fear of Abandonment | |
| The Adult: A Clinger | |
| The Detached Child: Fear of Rejection | |
| The Adult: An Avoider | |
| Interlude: The Minimizer and the Maximizer | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Attachment Stage? | |
| Exploration: Love Affair with the World | |
| The Distancing Child: Fear of Absorption | |
| The Adult: An Isolator | |
| The Ambivalent Child: Fear of Loss | |
| The Adult: A Pursuer | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Exploration Stage? | |
| Identity and Competence: Becoming a Self | p. 84 |
| Identity: "This Is Me" | |
| The Rigid Child: Fear of Being Shamed | |
| The Adult: A Rigid Controller | |
| The Invisible Child: Fear of Being a Self | |
| The Adult: A Compliant Diffuser | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Identity Stage? | |
| Competence: "I Can Do It" | |
| The Competitive Child: Fear of Failure/Disapproval | |
| The Adult: A Compulsive Competitor | |
| The Helpless/Manipulative Child: Fear of Aggressiveness/Success | |
| The Adult: A Manipulative Compromiser | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Stage of Competence? | |
| Concern and Intimacy: Moving Out Into the World | p. 100 |
| Concern: "I Belong" | |
| The Lonely Child: Fear of Others/Ostracism | |
| The Adult: A Loner | |
| The Gregarious Child: Fear of Neediness/Being Alone | |
| The Adult: A Sacrificing Caretaker | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Stage of Concern? | |
| Intimacy: "I Can Be Close and Loving" | |
| The Rebellious Child: Fear of Being Controlled | |
| The Adult: A Rebel | |
| The Model Child: Fear of Being Different | |
| The Adult: A Conformist | |
| Exercise: Was I Wounded at the Intimacy Stage? | |
| Exercise: Am I a Minimizer or a Maximizer? | |
| Exercise: Identifying the Wounded Child in the Adult | |
| Traumatized Relationships: Legacy of the Dysfunctional Family | p. 115 |
| A Matter of Degree | |
| It's All Trauma | |
| Shell-Shocked Children | |
| Why Are Only Some Children Affected? | |
| Unexperienced Experience | |
| All Loss Is Abusive | |
| Emotional Abuse | |
| Who's to Blame? | |
| Is the Child at Fault? | |
| Are You from a Dysfunctional Family? | |
| How Can I Break the Pattern? | |
| The Imago Puzzle II: Childhood Socialization | |
| "For Your Own Good": the Messages of Socialization | p. 137 |
| Society's Child | |
| The Price of Socialization | |
| Shutting Down the Energetic Core | |
| Getting the Message | |
| The Model Marriage | |
| Bullied by Our Beliefs | |
| The Crybaby and the Bitch | |
| Thinking | |
| Feeling | |
| Acting | |
| Sensing | |
| Local Custom | |
| The Whole Self: Missing in Action | |
| Exercise: Your Parents' Marriage | |
| Exercise: What Do I Believe? | |
| Recovering the Missing Self: Love's Agenda | p. 157 |
| The Hidden Self | |
| The Lost Self | |
| The Denied Self | |
| The False Self: Filling in the Gaps | |
| Is Anybody Home? | |
| Mutilated, but Alive | |
| Falling in Love: What's Lost Is Found | |
| Awakening the Sleeping Beast | |
| Owning the Missing Self | |
| Facing the Truth | |
| Putting Ourselves Back Together | |
| The Big Picture | |
| Exercise: Your Hidden Self | |
| Exercise: Your Lost Self | |
| Exercise: Your Denied Self | |
| Gender and Sexuality: Making Love, not War | p. 175 |
| "All You Do is Complain" | |
| Rumbling in the Psyche: The Emerging Feminine | |
| Vive la Difference | |
| Physical Differences | |
| Developmental Differences | |
| Hormones and the Brain | |
| Is Culture the Culprit? | |
| Playing Our Roles, Losing Our Selves | |
| Owning Your Contrasexual Self: Swimming against the Tide | |
| Your Partner Is Not You! | |
| Dialogue Is All We Can Have | |
| Developing the "Other" in You | |
| Sharing the Caring | |
| Moving Toward Androgyny | |
| Sexuality: Me Tarzan, You Jane | |
| The Sex-Love Trade-off | |
| Reclaiming Sexual Pleasure | |
| Exercise: Your Gender Energy Balance | |
| Exercise: Your Sexual Self | |
| The Journey of Partnership | |
| The Imago: Recipe for Romance | p. 211 |
| The Imago: Distillation of Childhood Experience | |
| How Does the Imago Work in Partner Choice? | |
| The Illusion of Love | |
| The Language of Love | |
| The Benefits of Illusion | |
| Love: Nature's Anesthesia | |
| There Is No Love in Romance | |
| Why Is It Important to Understand, and to Modify, the Imago? | |
| Unmasking the Imago | |
| Exercise: Unmasking the Imago | |
| Exercise: Childhood Frustrations | |
| Exercise: Your Unconscious Childhood Agenda | |
| Partnership: the Journey to Consciousness | p. 227 |
| The Unconscious Relationship | |
| When Romance Dies: The Trajectory of the Unconscious Relationship | |
| This Too Shall Pass | |
| David and Sarah | |
| The Denouement of the Power Struggle | |
| Breaking the Impasse: The End of Bargaining | |
| Becoming Conscious: A Turning Point on the Journey | |
| Owning Our Projections | |
| Commitment to Healing | |
| The Conscious Marriage | |
| Characteristics of a Conscious Relationship | |
| Becoming a Conscious Single | |
| From Insight to Integration: Basic Strategies for Change | p. 251 |
| Start Now | |
| What's the Rush? | |
| Waking Up Is Hard to Do | |
| Surrendering to Change | |
| Self-Hatred: The Stumbling Block | |
| Creating an Environment for Change | |
| The Benefits of Group Therapy | |
| Utilitarian Dating | |
| When You Fall in Love | |
| "My, How You've Changed!" | |
| New Skills, New Behavior: Steps to Self-Integration | p. 266 |
| Exercise: My Wholeness Agenda | |
| Exercise: Creating a Safe Haven | |
| Recovering Your Aliveness | |
| Exercise: Your Aliveness Quotient | |
| Exercise: Sources of Aliveness | |
| Exercise: Enlivening Activities | |
| Exercise: My Enlivenment Agenda | |
| Exercise: Owning and Changing Negative Behaviors | |
| Exercise: The Art of Intentional Dialogue | |
| Exercise: Holding Projections | |
| Exercise: Behavior Change Requests | |
| Real Love: Paradise Regained | p. 292 |
| Safety First | |
| No Strings Attached | |
| Good Intentions | |
| Nature's Grand Design | |
| Notes | p. 305 |
| Bibliography | p. 317 |
| Index | p. 321 |
| About the Author | p. 327 |
| The Institute for Relationship Training | p. 328 |
| Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved. |
