Clinical Psychologists and Relationship Health Experts Introduce New Treatment Model for Couples in Distress in 'Need Management Therapy'

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Amid high divorce and failed cohabitation rates, making love last may feel like a hopeless endeavor. However, as Robert N. Johansen, Ph.D., and Todd W. Gaffaney, Ph.D., demonstrate in "Need Management Therapy (NMT): A New Science of Love, Intimacy, and Relationships," relationship success is not a matter of luck or chance but a product of respect and affection for oneself and one's partner.

In "Need Management Therapy," Johansen and Gaffaney present an innovative, culturally responsive approach to intimate relationships that identifies poor individual need management as the root of all couple conflict. The NMT model operates from the vantage point that most individuals have a difficult time understanding and taking responsibility for their own needs, which renders them incapable of articulating their needs to their partners and leads to disruptive conflicts within the relationship.

Identifying critical pillars of need management—identification, legitimatization, and representation—Johansen and Gaffaney provide an effective, short-term approach for helping couples identify, validate, and express their needs and emotions while improving their communication and mutual responsiveness. The result is a strengthened relational dynamic marked by mutual vulnerability, understanding, and respect that creates deeper intimacy and love to flourish.

In writing "Need Management Therapy," Johansen and Gaffaney serve a dual purpose, providing readers with the necessary tools to improve their intimate relationships and introducing an effective, easy-to-use model to mental health professionals working with couples. Ultimately, their goal is to expand their successful framework and help more people foster greater intimacy, growth, and fulfillment within their current or future relationships.

"The intimate relationship is unique in a special way," said the authors. "No one knows us as deeply as our partners. They can open us up like a surgeon's scalpel, revealing all our flaws and deficits as well as our personal strengths and values. Optimally, we can take responsibility for these revelations to further our growth and maturity. By this means, intimacy is transforming—it is the 'new womb' of our development."

"Need Management Therapy will give you the practical tools you need to resolve your relationship problems and reconnect in ways you never would have imagined as possible," said Amber Trueblood, LMFT, MBA, author of "Stretch Marks" and host of The Stretch Marks Podcast. "This is a must read for those who want to improve their intimate relationship."

"Anyone involved in an intimate relationship who wants to achieve long-term emotional balance and integration, will benefit from reading Need Management Therapy," said Ken Mazey, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and professor and lecturer at UCLA Honors Collegium Program. "Psychotherapists from all persuasions will be honed by the insights, guidance, and detailed strategies of this book."

"Need Management Therapy (NMT): A New Science of Love, Intimacy, and Relationships"
By Robert N. Johansen, Ph.D., and Todd W. Gaffaney, Ph.D.
ISBN: 9781480899278 (softcover); 9781480899261 (hardcover); 9781480899285 (electronic)
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Archway Publishing

About the authors
Todd W. Gaffaney, Ph.D., is a distinguished professor emeritus of clinical psychology at Cerritos College, where he taught from 1975 to 2019. In 2010, he was awarded the most outstanding professor at the college. Currently, Gaffaney is on faculty at Pepperdine Graduate School of Education and Psychology and is a longstanding member of the American Psychological Association. He is a co-author of two books on intimate relationships, including "Making Love: How to Create, Enjoy, and Sustain Intimacy," which was co-authored with Robert N. Johansen, Ph.D. He is also a nationally known motivational speaker on relationship health, war psychology, and the science of relationship change, and is certified as a life and relationship coach and trainer in private practice. He is married with three adult children, eight grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and one small dog.

Robert N. Johansen, Ph.D., is a long-standing member of the American Psychological Association and co-director of the Cerritos Psychological Center, where he has been in practice for over 40 years and specializes in couple's therapy and intern supervision. Johansen has co-authored two relationship books, taught psychology at several colleges and universities and lectured at UCLA, the Milton Erickson International Foundation, CAMFT, NPR, ABC, UCI Educational TV, YouTube and continuing education programs at Alliant International University. Johansen is married with two adult children and three grandchildren and enjoys literature, art, and theater, dabbles in astrophysics, and travels the world with his wife.

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LAVIDGE – Phoenix                        
Leslie Standridge                        
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