In your efforts to meet or find a desirable life partner,

Have You Experienced

Toxic Dating?

WELCOME TO
ToxicDating.com

Years of professional experience as a clinical psychologist with a specialty in services to single adults, has led the web site author (Reginald B.Humphreys, Ph.D.) to develop an array of concepts potentially helpful to the adult attempting to navigate the landscape of dating and courtship. Most of these concepts have to do with recognition of the many dangers and pitfalls which are likely to be encountered in the enterprise of adult dating.

Although my clients find these concepts helpful, and while audiences at lectures are also appreciative, it has still been difficult to find an agent or publisher who wants to publish a guide to everything that is unpleasant about dating.

"Its just too negative . . . people don't respond to negativity . . . people won't buy a negative book . . . ". These are the kinds of barriers which book publishing professionals use to determine the worthiness of a popular (trade) publishing project.

If I were to write a book on how to cure the illnesses causes by the bites of insects, I would of course advise the individual, above all other measures, to avoid being bitten by insects.

Our writings on the subject of Toxic Dating describes the problem in detail, but the advice that we provide along with it is much less detailed and sophisticated. The advice, in every case, will be for you, the reader, to avoid relationships with individuals who you feel are playing toxic games with you and your feelings.

I have received encouragement to develop this book project, but to make it solution-oriented. I should tell the reader how to handle each given type of relationship game once it has been identified.

I truly wish that I could do that very thing. I wish that I could provide solutions to the types of games that I describe. But it seems to me that I would be betraying the trust of the reader if I should suggest that it really is a good idea to work very hard at adjusting to the relationship games of others. In my experience, most game players continue to play the same relationship games, over and over, robotically, needing only a meeting of new acquaintances (new victims) to signal the beginning of a reenactment of the same old pattern as before.

Am I being too pessimistic ?   I guess that is a possibility. I can agree that a certain percentage of individuals do learn to stop their characteristic pattern of relationship games. But this percentage is very low, and is the exception rather than the rule. In my experience, game players are highly resistant to change, even when they are in psychotherapy.

I have tried to follow the advice of one very good literary agent, and have created a second book project which is focused entirely on the subject of overcoming toxic relationship "games". This book project, also accessible on this web ring, is titled "Detoxifying Relationships: Solutions for Couples". It is designed to help couples in existing relationships overcome toxic interaction patterns which, if uncorrected, will damage or destroy their relationships.

In spite of the need for just such a solution-oriented book, the material in that presentation is different from the information in "Toxic Dating Games". The problems faced by singles deserve discussion in their own space and forum. Unless singles understand and correctly deal with Toxic Dating Games, they may never make it to the stage of having an established relationship, let alone need help on making a relationship toxicity-free.

While toxic game-playing within an established relationship has the effect of interfering with intimacy and damaging the relationship, toxic game-playing during dating and courtship tend to prevent the development of intimacy, and prevent and sabotage the development of a possible relationship.

The summary of all our best advice to single adults is that they should become skilled in recognizing toxic dating games, and in avoiding relationships that contain these. Full elaboration of this subject is the central theme of our book projects on toxic dating games. While we cannot give away all the material which will eventually be incorporated into the separate book projects, we are pleased to provide one free sample chapter from each project dealing with dating games, and also a complete summary essay.

To access the main menu for Toxic Dating, click here