Since his retirement in 1990, Luciano L’Abate, Ph.D. has been Professor Emeritus at Georgia State University where he was previously a Professor of Psychology beginning in 1965. L’Abate has been an editorial board member of many national and foreign professional and scientific journals, as well as a consultant to various publishing houses. He is the author and co-author of over 300 papers, chapters, and book reviews in professional journals in addition to authoring/editing 34 books. His work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, Spanish, French, Polish, and German languages. Dr. L’Abate is the recipient of many awards including "Family Psychologist of the Year for 1994" by Division 43 of the American Psychological Association, "Outstanding Contribution" by the Georgia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and "Outstanding Citizen" by the House of Representatives in the State of Georgia. He has also held workshops and lectured extensively in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Dr. L’Abate has spent the last several years involved full-time in writing and research since his retirement from Georgia State University.

• Background for a Theory of Personality Socialization in Intimate Relationships and Psychopathology.- Background for a Theory of Personality Socialization in Intimate Relationships and Psychopathology.- Requirements for the Theory.- Reducibility to Known Psychological Constructs.- Verifiability and Accountability.- Metatheoretical Assumptions.- The Horizontality of Relationships.- The Verticality of Relationships.- Settings as Contexts for Intimate Relationships.- Assumptions of the Theory.- Space and the Ability to Love.- Time and the Ability to Negotiate.- Modalities of Exchange.- Models of the Theory.- Developmental Identity-Differentiation.- Styles in Intimate Relationships.- Selfhood: The Attribution of Importance.- Priorities: What Is Really Important?.- Applications of the Theory.- Distance Regulation.- The Drama Triangle.- Intimacy: Sharing Hurts and Fears of Being Hurt.- Negotiating How to Solve Problems.- A Concluding Model16 and a Comparative Model17.- Conclusion.- Testing the Theory in the Laboratory and Prevention Settings.- The Future of the Theory.