Kidnykid's Full Review: Patrick Carnes, Debra Laaser, Mark Laaser - Open H...
OPEN HEARTS is intended for people in recovery already. In fact, the presumption in the workbook is that a couple is in a group called Recovering Couples Anonymous, a 12-step group for couples who are already working 12-step programs on an individual basis. OPEN HEARTS is also intended to be the official workbook used by those running the We Came to Believe seminars, for those couples whose members are working individual 12-step recovery programs.
Because OPEN HEARTS presumes that one is already in a recovery program, both individually and as a couple in RCA, there is the further presumption that one does not need the standard medical disclaimer at the beginning, advising the reader to get professional advice before doing anything in the workbook. 12-step groups, at their heart, depend on the members' acknowledgment that they need the group in question, rather than on a doctor's recommendation that an eligible person attend such meetings. The authors of OPEN HEARTS are aware of that tradition, and write their workbook accordingly.
OPEN HEARTS uses the 12 Steps of RCA as a format for its exercises. The exercises for the 12th Step, for example, presume that one knows how to "carry the message" to other suffering couples. There are also inventory exercises in the area covered by the 4th Step, among other things.
Perhaps the silliest-looking one, in my opinion, is an exercise in which a couple is asked to come up with a family shield. Aside from my belief that this is not truly pertinent to any of the Steps (despite its inclusion in OPEN HEARTS), I simply didn't like the look of the layout the authors had selected, believing that it simply appeared out-of-place and formulaic. If it is supposed to be an individualized shield representing a family's mission statement and values, then why does every single family have to use the same format and make their shield look basically the same (with different words in the appropriate places)? Why aren't families allowed to create their own design from scratch, right down to the shape of the shield - an easy feat to accomplish given modern graphics programs?
Finally, it must be said that the exercises seem very heavily influenced by one of the co-authors, Patrick Carnes, PhD. I'm seeing some of the same material in OPEN HEARTS that has shown up in A GENTLE PATH THROUGH THE TWELVE STEPS, such as gentleness breaks, for example. Another similiarity is the way in which the book is structured and worded. If you dislike the idea of the Twelve Steps, too bad. You have to use them anyway if you want to go to the We Came to Believe workshops and seminars. Questions and exercises in a workbook such as this are worded in such a way as to make you put down the answers the authors are trying to solicit, rather than the answers which most accurately describe what you feel and how you really are.
For that reason, I'd say stick to using OPEN HEARTS within the context of the workshops, or perhaps as a part of conjoint couples therapy or some similar context. Professional help definitely ought to be a part of your game plan if you use a workbook like this. If you use this as a part of marriage therapy, you can get some individualized help from the counselor. Maybe, if the counselor is not a 12-step fan in the first place, you might even obtain some balanced perceptions of the book from that counselor. In any event, it's not a book you want to use with just your spouse, as the writers had apparently intended. (If you are going to solicit someone else's help with the exercises, the way in which they are worded assumes that the "someone else" whose help you solicit is another married couple, a move I don't advise due to the strong probability that the other couple is not professionally trained.)
That's just about the only situation in which I could see couples using OPEN HEARTS, though. If you're not willing to do that, skip it. Also, you might feel just a tad uncomfortable by its authorship - a psychologist and a married couple - if you are homosexual and in a committed partnership; OPEN HEARTS seems to presume that its readers are married and heterosexual.
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