Making Love Last: How to Sustain Intimacy and Nurture Genuine Connection

by David Richo

Intimacy is one of the great powers and joys of life, yet all too often it gets clouded by miscommunication, a loss of affection, and a lack of mutual support. Here therapist David Richo shows us how to use mindfulness to better understand ourselves and our partners so that we can:

   •  Increase our capacity to give and receive love by recognizing how our past relationships affect our current life


   •  Improve physical and emotional intimacy by embracing the five hallmarks of loving relationships


   •  Resolve conflicts by constructively working with anger, grief, and blame


   •  Move from needy, ego-centered love to unconditional love by addressing fears of engulfment or abandonment


   •  Discover how relationships can be a path to spiritual awakening by practicing mindfulness and loving-kindness
3 CDs; 3 hours.

Genres: Relationships, Nonfiction

Audio CD

First published October 14, 2008

About the author

David Richo, PhD, is a therapist and author who leads popular workshops on personal and spiritual growth.

He received his BA in psychology from Saint John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts, in 1962, his MA in counseling psychology from Fairfield University in 1969, and his PhD in clinical psychology from Sierra University in 1984. Since 1976, Richo has been a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor in California. In addition to practicing psychotherapy, Richo teaches courses at Santa Barbara City College and the University of California Berkeley at Berkeley, and has taught at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. He is a clinical supervisor for the Community Counseling Center in Santa Barbara, California.

Known for drawing on Buddhism, poetry, and Jungian perspectives in his work, Richo is the author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Lovingand The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find in Embracing Them. He has also written When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds that Sabotage our Relationships, Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side, The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know, and Being True to Life: Poetic Paths to Personal Growth.

Richo lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco.

Reviews

[Caleb Abel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. This did nothing for me. Granted, I have a very healthy marriage and this is obviously aimed at couples that have a lot of work to do. The points I thought were good points were also things that have always seem fairly obvious to me and the rest either didn't feel relevant to me at all or struggled to find their final point. A lot of different religious beliefs are brought into it; few of which helped to unify the point that was being made. There's also an AWFUL lot of marker sounds and laughter at things presumably related to whatever was being drawn and none of that makes any sense on audiobook.

The material either should have been written into a short book that was properly recorded or it should've been a video, but it did not make for a very good audiobook to listen to on a commute. I'm sure if this guy still does classes and stuff they'd be worth going to for struggling couples.

I edited 2 stars to 3 stars because I think this would probably be more helpful to a couple that struggled heavily with trust, empathy, and selflessness, but I'm fortunate to say it does not relate to my own marriage at this time or any time in the past 10 years so far.

[Davina · Rating 3 out of 5]

He kept talking about "spiritual" "spirituality" and similar terms, but I didn't see how this connected to his overall points. I think his overall thesis is sound, and it integrates a lot of different pieces including attachment theory. A lot of the book had an inward vs a couples focus, and that felt appropriate, yet, I didn't feel he setup that focus well. It didn't feel, for a while, clear why he was spending so much time on the individual. I certainly understood his purpose, I just don't think he stated it clearly enough, so it was a little jarring, as I kept asking "where are we going."