cover image Togetherness: Creating and Deepening Sustainable Love

Togetherness: Creating and Deepening Sustainable Love

Cyndi Dale and Andrew Wald, with Debra Evans. Deeper Well and Brio Books (www.briobooks.com), $16.95 trade paper (216p) ISBN 978-1-937061-85-2

Moving upwards through a kind of metaphysical hierarchy of "togetherness," Dale (The Subtle Body) and Wald draw from their combined 80,000+ psychotherapy sessions to offer practical and spiritual advice for securing togetherness "within the Self," "with a Future Partner," "with a Current Partner," and finally, "with the Divine." The authors insist that these "cornerstones" are essential to establishing a "heart-to-heart connection," and they approach each through a series of chapters that combine their psychotherapeutic and personal experience with quotes from sources as diverse as Les Miserables and Lao Tzu%E2%80%94all in a conversational narrative made possible by their co-author, Evans, who interviewed them as a way to facilitate a dialogic approach to the topic. The result is a book that shirks traditional self-help labels, choosing instead to blend "Reflective Moment[s]," practical self-assessments (e.g., "On a scale from 1 %E2%80%93 10%E2%80%A6to what extent are you being honest with yourself about%E2%80%A6") and sometimes heavy-handed New Age spirituality (one chapter is titled "The Flower of the Self: Inner Core to Outer Petals") to mend individuals, and then bring them together. While this m%C3%A9lange of methods could be seen as evidence of the authors' openness to myriad schools of thought, the mix can occasionally feel muddled or confused. Still, Dale and Wald haven't thrived as therapists for nothing%E2%80%94they have much to offer. (June)