“Balancing neurological research with emotional potential, The Aperture Effect is an immersive and accessible relationship guide."
-Clarion Foreword Reviews
The Aperture Effect
A Radically Simple Approach to Finding Joy and Connection in Your Relationship
Pre-Order May 19, 2025
On Sale June 24, 2025
Couples often ask, “Can people really change?” A better question is how do people change?
In The Aperture Effect, psychiatrist and couples therapist Dr. Kathryn Ford doesn’t just tell you how—she gives you simple tools that will quickly begin to transform your conversations, your communication, and your relationship. With her radically simple approach of Aperture Awareness, Dr. Ford integrates mindfulness, Western psychology, and neuroscience to help couples shift their dynamics when in distress, turning their difficulties into lasting connection.
Filled with on-the-ground examples and effective exercises to nurture relationship growth, The Aperture Effect will show you how use in-the-moment awareness to:
use small moments to make the changes you want now;
change frustrating debates into open dialogues that create connection;
bring out the best in your partner and yourself;
turn problems into opportunities to learn and love more fully.
Developed over more than two decades, Dr. Ford’s Aperture Awareness approach has helped hundreds of couples reverse the downward spiral of relationship crisis—and prepare for a lifetime of learning and loving together.
Endorsements for The Aperture Effect
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An aperture is a window or the hole in a lens allowing for the passage of light. Dr. Ford applies this metaphor of light to awareness, openness and vulnerability to ourselves and others in the service of intimate relationships. Her strategies include mindfulness, patterns of interpersonal dynamics, and self-reflection to bring couple to deeper levels of person and interpersonal connection. The reader will find her practical and insightful guidance through the challenges of relationship both enlightening and useful. Highly recommended for therapists, couples, and anyone in any kind of relationships.
Louis Cozolino, Ph.D.
Author of Why Therapy Works -
Dr. Ford’s book is a profound contribution to integrating mindfulness into our daily lives. With clarity and insight, she guides us step by step in using present-moment awareness as a powerful, reliable path to healing and deepening our relationships. Her writing is infused with the wisdom that the challenges we face in our most important connections are opportunities for growth, transformation, and greater love.
Shauna Shapiro, PhD
Professor, Author of Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness + Self-Compassion to Rewire Your Brain -
Dr. Ford takes you on a journey that simplifies the enormous complexity of loving and being loved. She brings hope to every struggling marriage. With wisdom and heart, she guides you to learn together, grow together, and discover the hidden treasures that only the hard work of commitment to love can reveal.
Ellyn Bader, Ph.D
Founder of The Couples Institute & Co-Creator of The Developmental Model of Couples Therapy