ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a particular conceptual framework or working tool which individuals, couples and couples therapists have found useful in exploring meaning of love and separateness, increasing opportunities for love in couples relationships and reducing potential for war in the intimacy zone. It designs the ideas to evoke questioning of what the therapist can and cannot hope to facilitate, and what the couple realistically can or cannot hope to achieve, in couples counseling or therapy. Exploring the feasibility or likelihood of effective therapeutic action towards different therapeutic goals can sometimes prevent disillusionment and despair. Nations are the large-scale experiments in humans living together where good outcomes lead to peace, harmony and creativity. For example, continuing to work in couples therapy on communication styles when a woman’s life or economic freedom is endangered does not constitute good psychology. The chapter highlights three minimally unchangeable areas: temperament, personality, and sexual arousal or preferences.
