Constructing the Sexual Crucible: An Integration of Sexual and Marital Therapy (Norton Professional Books (Hardcover))

This was recommended to me by a friend and the content was not what I was looking for.

This book is essential to the development of a robust marriage therapy model. Glad it was included in our curriculum at New Mexico State for the MFT program!

Great for my work library!

A bit technical for someone new to the field. The website is a great tool to use in interpreting concepts found in the book

Great book. Recommend every couple that needs work to read it. Definitely going to be my new relationship bible.

This book is written to train doctors who treat couples for sexual issues that arise in marriage. My wife and I have tried to read this book together, it goes so deep into the history of sex and uses words that only a doctor would get. I am sure that this is a very good book and I will continue to read it. For people having issues in their marriage, I don't recommend this book, it is to hard to follow. It spends the first three chapters putting you to sleep. I am still in search of a book that will help my wife and I get things working again. If anyone really liked this book, I am sorry if I upset or offended you.

i would honestly love to return it, terrible book, all based on theory and nothing truly relevant

Schnarch has completed a Herculean task of exploring in depth the role of intimacy and sexuality (and spirituality). The sexual crucible model clearly is the most sophisticated model available today for marriage and sex therapists. His novel approach propells the field beyond the behavioral and technique focus that most therapist wouldn't even do if they had too. I was impressed that he attempted to address spirituality and some of his concepts in the final chapter are interesting. However, he falls into a simple dichotomy in analyzing religion which basically is a good/bad split. He really doesn't understand the depth of thought behind some of the previous great thinkers and sees them only through 20th century glasses, where they are easy targets. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to therapists. It is truly groundbreaking.

David Schnarch writes in a very gripping way about the issue of lacking sexual desire. The Crucible Approach as described in Chapter 10 provides a strainful, but conclusive alternative to the common approach to bring the matter down to the lowest common denominator. It has to be admitted though, that his way to deal with the issue requires a lot of integrity from both, the therapist and the patient. But isn't that worthwhile for the aim of love and intimacy? At least it was very much worthwhile to go through this book for me as a german reader. Thank you, David Schnarch!