Two veteran psychiatrists unravel the mystery of how thought and emotional patterns are passed from parents to children, generation after generation, "conditioning" each of us in ways that endure throughout our lives and affect all of our relationships.

Introduction -- Understanding emotional conditioning -- How we learn about relationships -- Emotional conditioning -- Seven effects of emotional conditioning -- The omnipotent personality -- The impotent personality -- Relationship struggles : miscommunications and marriages [MS1] -- Why we miscommunicate -- Roles within marriages -- Conflicts in marriage -- Getting divorced and single again -- Solutions : psychotherapy and deconditioning [MS2] -- Emotional illness and therapy: the deconditioning process -- What you can do to decrease living on automatic.