Reviews
More Praise for I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics
May 28th, 2019
After over 40 years working as a psychotherapist, Safer has spent a sizable amount of time exploring intimate relationships. She has noticed that now, more than ever before, cherished partnerships—be they romantic, platonic, familial, or otherwise—are greatly endangered by our polarized political climate. Through a series of case studies, Safer explores how people with diametrically opposed viewpoints can maintain healthy, functioning connections. Readers meet leftist fathers who reject right-leaning, veteran sons; conservative husbands who toss the word “liberal” as an insult-grenade at the peak of an argument; and friends who email PowerPoints to their ideological opponents outlining why the other is wrong. The most fervent takeaway: remembering that we cannot change others, only change ourselves. No matter how persistent or prescient we may be, we rarely convince others to join our side. With this, Safer offers rules of engagement for mixed-viewpoint commingling that prioritize respect and care. What makes Safer, a vocal liberal, so qualified? Her decades-long career exploring the mind, and an equally lengthy marriage to a staunchly conservative commentator.
— Courtney Eathorne
Review of I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics
April 23rd, 2019
Psychotherapist and podcaster Safer (The Golden Condom) offers empathetic and sanity-saving advice on navigating the mine fields of political conversation. Safer, a liberal Democrat married to a conservative Republican, shares plenty of hard-won tips from her own life, notably not raising one’s voice, not discussing politics under the influence of alcohol, and, perhaps most apropos in the age of Facebook, not sending a partner unsolicited partisan articles or links on contentious topics. Cautionary tales of relationships gone awry are sprinkled throughout, including a story about female best friends who nearly ended their longtime friendship over a Trump-Hillary debate, and screaming fights between a liberal mother and her conservative teenage son. Safer encourages readers to examine their own motivations for discussions, and realize that most political fights in intimate relationships are not about politics but about a compulsion to change dissimilar views to align with one’s own. She also advises readers to use humor to defuse hostility and to work to understand the viewpoints of others. This insightful, well-reasoned book will help readers negotiate the political differences in their relationships with the people they love most.
The Golden Condom Booklist Review
February 23rd, 2016
(9781250055767). 152.4.
Drawing on her own experiences as well as those of patients and friends, Safer meditates on love’s most volatile and traumatic forms: unrequited love, difficult love, betrayal, bad friendships, the intimate relationships between mentors and protégés. As a therapist, she takes a somewhat clinical approach, introducing psychology terms, when appropriate (“narcissistic injury,” “ego strength,” “abreaction”), which she expands upon in well-placed footnotes, explaining a term’s origins or offering suggestions for further reading. Beyond the clinical, though, the text also has a philosophical and literary aspect, weaving in quotes from Samuel Johnson and Samuel Beckett, for example, as well as offering personal reflections drawn from a journal written by the author’s hopelessly-, destructively-in-love, 19-year-old self. The timelessness of the topic as well as its confessional, educational content will give The Golden Condom wide appeal—anyone will be able to find themselves reflected in one story or another, whether they are in love, or longing, or looking to understand this mystifying, powerful, innately human experience.
— Sarah Grant
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The Golden Condom: And Other Essays on Love Lost and Found
January 5th, 2016
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Sibling Rivalries: Why They’re So Common and Why They Persist Into Adulthood
March 22nd, 2012
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