Psychotherapy is conversation about competing differences. When these differences are treated violently or indifferently, problems arise, but love provides a solution. In a time when love seems to be fading and hatred and despair rising, Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D., shows that love is a skill and force that can heal and invigorate, reconnect and guide, calm and encourage. Gilligan emphasizes ethics and human sponsorship along with Buddhist and akido principles.

This is a book about how psychotherapy may be used to cultivate the courage and freedom to love. In a time when love seems to be fading and hatred and despair rising, it presents love as a skill and force that can heal and invigorate, reconnect and guide, calm and encourage. In Gilligan's self-relations approach, psychotherapy is a conversation about competing differences. When these differences are treated violently or indifferently, problems arise; solutions develop when the skills of love are practiced. Those practical skills are described here, with an emphasis on post-conventional ethics, Buddhist and aikido principles, and ideas of human sponsorship.