Who’s Talking Now?

About the Book

Who’s Talking Now?—The Owl or the Crocodile? offers couples an engaging and approachable guide for understanding the dynamics of their relationships and for communicating in ways that foster healthy and durable lives together. The author, Seymour Boorstein, a practicing psychiatrist, has chosen two animals to represent what researchers now call the two brains. One, the reptilian, provides quick and almost automatic responses, while the other takes longer to deliberate and to reflect. By understanding the interactions of these aspects of human thought, the partners in a relationship can develop ways to move toward healing in their life together. Commenting on Who’s Talking Now?, Mardi Horowitz, professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco and author of A Course in Happiness and Grieving As Well As Possible, notes, “This book gives access to great wisdom on how couples can improve their relationships. The charming illustrations add to the humane words of the author’s extensive and valuable pragmatic knowledge. Hard work is needed for successful relationships, but it is eminently worthwhile!” In addition, Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, writes, “Who’s Talking Now? is a delightful and amazingly accessible book for all couples. Most will find themselves mirrored in this book and all will find help in clarifying how to improve the way they talk with each other.” If you desire to strengthen and deepen your relationship with your partner, then Who’s Talking Now? will help you enrich your life together.

About the Author

Seymour Boorstein, a psychiatrist in practice since 1959, credits his couples’ work, his own long-lived marriage, and his parenting and grandparenting with shaping the distinctive methodology in Who’s Talking Now? He has been an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California’s School of Medicine, San Francisco, since 1972.