Understanding that relationships are complicated, Andrea Gurney, Westmont professor of psychology and a practicing clinical psychologist, has written a book born out of a desire to help create and maintain healthy, intimate connections that honor and glorify God.

Reimagining Your Love Story: Biblical and Psychological Practices for Healthy Relationships, to be released March 26, will be available at several local book-signing events.

“Fostering a healthy, intimate relationship is one of the hardest things for a human to do. And yet it is also one of the most rewarding things we can ever be a part of, integral to the way we were created,” Gurney said.

Gurney, who began teaching at Westmont in 2005 and opened her private practice soon after, says love makes us vulnerable, but it also makes us strong.

“I am reminded of this every day in my work as a clinical psychologist and college professor, but also as a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend,” she said.

“We need one another. We are designed for relationships, Imago Dei: We are created in the image of God. And at His core, our God is relational. But more often than not, relationships are messy,” she said.

Although individuals are born wired as relational beings, dependent on one another for survival, they are ill-equipped to establish and maintain healthy and lasting intimate relationships, Gurney said.

— Scott Craig for Westmont College.