When a couple first comes together, the knee-weakening, heart-stopping, pants-dropping passion exhilarates. But turning that love into an intimate bond comes no more naturally than learning to ride a bicycle or use chopsticks. What we are socialized to assume should be spontaneous and effortless requires patience and learned skills. Worse, should any problems erupt we fear the relationship and ourselves are irrevocably broken. We need help.

Though written by two noted psychologists, Open Hearts is not technical but gentle and uplifting. Patrick Carnes, along with Mark Laaser and Deb Laaser, share how they found their way to joyous and fulfilling intimacy. While these concepts originated in the recovery movement, they can transform any couple seeking renewal or trying to restore a broken relationship.

Open Hearts starts with basic truths:

• We can only work on a relationship when we're in that relationship. Running away never solved anything

• If we have not resolved childhood developmental issues, we will seek out partners we think will resolve them

• It's perfectly healthy to fight. We just have to learn to do it better.

• As partners w'ere often stuck in "coupleshame." However, working through it leads to true intimacy

Open Hearts is a book a couple reads together. It takes techniques that Carnes and the Laasers developed in their psychotherapy practices and weaves them into a series of individual and joint exercises. It looks at tough issues: shame, anger, money, betrayal, sex, parenting. It encourages fun: drawing up a family motto, expressing spirituality together, taking gentleness breaks. It works.

Open Hearts addresses coupleship to show how a relationship, no matter how imperfect or new, can be transformed and restored to loving intimacy.

r. Patrick J. Carnes is a nationally known speaker on addiction and recovery issues. He has authored 15 books, including of Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction (1992), Contrary to Love: Helping the Sexual Addict (1989), The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997), Open Hearts (1999), Facing the Shadow (2001), In the Shadows of the Net (2001), and The Clinical Management of Sex Addiction (2002). Dr. Carnes article, 18.4 Sexual Addiction, appears in Kaplan & Sadock s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (2005). He is currently at work on Recovery Zone. Dr. Carnes is the Executive Director of the Gentle Path program at Pine Grove Behavioral Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He is the primary architect of Gentle Path treatment programs for the treatment of sexual and addictive disorders. He also pioneered the founding of the Certified Sex Addiction Therapist program. This has evolved into a network of local, regional, and residential programs which specialize in this work. Dr. Carnes holds a Ph.D. in counselor education from the University of Minnesota. He has been honored with numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health. Debra Laaser is the president and CEO of Yours, Mine, and Ours, Inc., an international company that produces water color drawings for the gift industry. She is an avid tennis player and golfer. Mark Laaser is renowned across the country for his books on marriage, sexuality and discussing sex in the family. Mark Laaser, Ph.D., CAS, is an author of several books, including Faithful and True, Before the Fall and Talking to Your Children About Sex, and is a speaker and workshop leader. Married for over 25 years, Mark and Deb are the parents of Sarah, Jon and Ben, and are currently trying to let go of all of them. They have led numerous couples workshops helping couples renew their relationships with recovery, romance and reality.