Lovebirds

October 28, 2013
Couples therapist Silvester explores romantic relationships and personalities through a bird analogy. A series of quizzes divide people into two categories—sky birds, which are ruled by their intuition and feelings, and more rationalist, data-driven ground birds. Silvester further sorts readers into eight subcategories loosely based on the Myers Briggs Personality Inventory: sight, song, feeling, and thinking birds. After types are established, he explores relationship dynamics between each personality type, addressing what each “bird” needs to know to interact with another type, and dos and don’ts for respective combinations. Once the myriad possibilities are explained in detail, Silvester offers love advice geared to all personality types—such as how to maintain a relationship once the newness has worn off—and encourages all couples to set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic goals to maintain their level of satisfaction within a romantic relationship. One of Silvester’s most striking and useful pieces of advice applies to everyone reading the book: “Make sure the internal self-talk is positive. Male or female, think about how you want something to be, not how it isn’t.” Despite the cute tone and occasional juvenile asides, Silvester offers a solid manual for strong relationships.