Judy’s writing
Looking back, I can see that I have always written about relationships. In fact, I see the world in terms of how one thing relates to the other
I decided to be a relationship therapist, specializing in couples. Those intimate relationships can both inflict our deepest pain and provide our most profound healing.
So I love intimacy! Except, of course, when I don’t.
What a dilemma —
We long to be close, to be known and accepted by someone, and then when it happens we run, terrified, to hide. Who needs that kind of exposure? Evidently, most of us need to feel that deep connection with someone. It drives us, scares us, baffles us, and feeds us.
And that’s why I had to write about it. Not in some theoretical, professorial way, but in the way that I knew best – from my own experience in my own marriage.
Published by Et Alia Press
INVITATION TO INTIMACY: What the marriage of two couples therapists reveals about risk, transformation, and the astonishing healing power of intimacy
“Through the innermost workings of the 35-year relationship between two marriage therapists, you’re invited to reconsider the meaning and power of intimacy.”
— Et Alia Press
About Invitation to Intimacy
“We endure and pursue because intimacy heals and transforms. The very relationships that provide healing also inflict pain and then can transform us by further healing. It can be a positive spiral, moving us in a direction of deeper and greater intimacy where we get to experience the best of ourselves. That is a profoundly powerful encounter!”
Much more than “just sex,” true intimacy flows from often-inadvertent invitations to be deeply known to another and whether to accept the invitations we’re offered. One of our strongest emotional desires is to feel understood, received, and loved in our closest relationships. Yet, to be known and to know another deeply, especially in the context of committed partnerships, we risk pain, loneliness, and betrayal. Is intimacy worth the risk?
This candid memoir begins with a husband’s dramatic diagnosis and weaves marital flashbacks and counseling sessions into the progression of his disease. Despite their degrees, licenses, and the specialized knowledge they shared daily with their own clients, they faced the same challenges as everyone in a lasting relationship. What would sustain them through the darkest nights of their marriage?
Through the everyday decisions and extraordinary movements that compose one marriage between two therapists, we see what is possible for every couple—the exhilarating, frightening, and ultimately healing power of accepting invitations to intimacy in our lives.