Why Can't You Read My Mind? by Jeffrey Bernstein PH.D and Susan Magee

Everyone seems to have an image in their mind of how it will be when we finally fall in love. But one of the most pernicious beliefs is that our beloved will somehow be able to read our mind and know what we want when we want it, and that we will never misunderstand each other, or will never make each other worry. But when we enter an actual relationship, it never quite turns out this way. We find ourselves growing upset at the other person and we slowly grow distant, rationalizing that the person we are with now is not the person we fell in love with. Eventually, if it goes on long enough, we call it quits and look for love once again.

But it doesn't have to be that way. To keep yourself from falling into the relationship vicious circle, Psychologist Jeffrey Bernstein has formulated ways for you to keep your relationship fresh and alive, and keep from falling into the pits that come from miscommunication. There are nine toxic thought patterns that relationships fall into, and sometimes couples fall prey to more than one at once. For example, there is the "All or nothing" pattern, where one accuses the other of "always doing" or "never doing" such and such. The second is jumping to Catastrophic Conclusions, where you let your fears run out of control, seeing the situation as worse and worse and allowing your fears to drive you crazy. The Third is the "Should" Bomb, when one partner thinks the other "Should" do or not do something, or feel some way when they obviously do not. Fourth, Labelling, usually in the worst way. Calling someone a name, such as "Loser", "Couch Potato", "Idiot" or another such name, even in jest, leads you to think of the person as that label, and not a real person.

Fifth is the Blame Game, laying all the blame for your problems on the other person in the relationship. If you see yourself as a victim, it may make you feel a little better, but it doesn't help the relationship at all. Sixth is the Emotional Short-Circuit, when one partner thinks the other's emotions can't be handled and then absolves themselves from doing so. Seventh is an overactive imagination, where one partner sees situations that don't exist, such as infidelity, in the relationship... mainly because they themselves are feeling insecure in the first place. Eighth is the Head Games, where partners ascribe suspect motivations to the other, such as being nice only because they want to get something out of the other person. Last is Disillusionment Doom which comes when one partner has unrealistic expectations of the relationship and because those expectations are not fulfilled, feels that the relationship has lower (or no, or little) worth.

But even if you have fallen into one of these traps of toxic thinking, there is hope, and this book lays out how to get out of the trap and reconnect with the partner you fell in love with, but it isn't an easy road, or a short one. It does work, though. Not all problems in a relationship arise solely out of that relationship, however, and sometimes Ghosts of the Past will intrude, making a problem worse than it is already. Issues of abandonment, cruelty, fear and jealously can linger long, adding to problems in any relationship, but the best way to overcome most kinds of Toxic thinking is to develop empathy, which the book shows how to start.

Though this book is written as a self-help book, the stuff within is really the kind of instruction where it might be best to have a third party helping, someone who is neutral and won't be supporting one side or another. It seems to me that this would be more helpful than just consulting a book, because you could more easily fall prey to the "Oh, no, that's not me" sense of denial. And from the stories presented in the book, it seems that is quite easy to do, even without the aid of a third party. This is a good book with a lot of solid ideas, but I am not convinced that it would be as easy to use this on your own without some sort of outside help to keep both parties honest and working to resolve their differences.