AIRED: July 13, 2020
SPECIAL GUEST: Linda Carrol
Falling in love is never a straight line to “happily ever after.” Relationships go through seasons of change, renewal, darkness, and light. So promises long-time therapist and couple’s coach Linda Carroll, author of Love Skills: The Key to Unlocking Lasting, Wholehearted Love, which offers specific, effective solutions to the most common struggles that couples face.
The heart of Carroll’s teachings — and the heart of Love Skills — comes from the Love Cycles model, which explains that relationships develop in predictable stages — The Merge, Doubt and Denial, Disillusionment, The Decision, and Wholehearted Love-— each of which presents its own challenges.
“With knowledge, commitment, and practice, we can usually work through these challenges, even when they initially feel insurmountable,” writes Carroll. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, people don’t meet, fall in love, overcome a few trials, and then live happily ever after — nor do conflict and dissatisfaction between partners necessarily mean a couple is headed for Splitsville.”
Love Skills offers a do-it-yourself version of a highly effective workshop program, which Carroll has been co-teaching with her husband for over 25 years, that readers can complete individually or as a couple. The book addresses both small troubles and the more serious dilemmas of communication gridlock, betrayal, and seemingly intractable differences, while providing a clear map for moving forward with these issues in the most productive way possible. Carrol shares, “When you know how to navigate the storms, conflict can lead to understanding and even closeness that makes your relationship even better than it was before.” “In most cases, the Love Skills process will help you to rediscover the original promise of your relationship and offer you a road map for traveling this rewarding and challenging path.”.
ABOUT LINDA CARROLL
Linda Carroll is the author of Love Skills and Love Cycles. While she has worked as a therapist and couple’s coach for over three decades and has acquired numerous certificates and degrees along the way, she says that her own thirty-five-year marriage is the primary source of her knowledge when it comes to the cycles of love. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
