In 1986, Farley published "Personal Commitments: Making, Keeping Breaking", which a reviewer in the "Journal of Religion" wrote "charts out what to watch for, when as a counselor, you are helping someone think through commitments" and focuses on "long-term commitments involving sexual intimacy". He added: "She does not display her erudition but hides it in footnotes. She expresses herself almost always in words available to the nonspecialist. She is courageous, breaking new ground." He singled out "the way she succinctly links the long heritage of Jewish and Christian thinking about 'covenant' with her earlier exploration of human relationships." A reviewer in the "Journal of the American Academy of Religion" called it "a valuable contribution to the literature of Christian ethics, and in particular to the discussion of the value of Christian love and special relationships. Farley has combined psychological subtlety and moral seriousness in such a way as to produce that rarity, a book that will be of great interest to the scholar, and yet would be useful in a parish or a counselor's office as well."