Gottman Method Therapy

The Gottman Method was developed to teach specific tools that deepen friendship and intimacy in your relationship. You will receive help, support, and research-proven methods to work through your conflicts, and to better manage your “resolvable problems” and “gridlocked” issues. 

Drs. John and Julie Gottman are researchers and clinical psychologists who used 40 years of research and worked with more than 3,000 couples to develop scientifically proven methods of saving troubled relationships.

Goals of Gottman Method

The goals of the Gottman Method are to teach you conflict management skills that:

• Allow you to remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy in your relationship.
• Increase intimacy, affection, and respect in your relationship, which allows you to become better friends and lovers in your relationship.
• Increase empathy, trust and commitment in your relationship.

The Gottman Method Process

The first step in Gottman Method is to assess your relationship. You begin with the first sessions of joint and individual sessions, which allows the thereapist to assess your relationship and decide on the therapeutic framework (your therapy schedule and plan). Then you can begin to help address the problem areas in your relationship. The therapeutic interventions work on improving three main aspects of your relationship:

• Friendship
• Conflict Management
• Creating Shared Meaning

The Gottman Method can work for all types of couples regardless of sexual orientation, socio-economic status and cultural backgrounds.

Issues Gottman Method Can Help

The Gottman Method breaks relationship problems into two categories:

1. Problems that can be resolved.
2. Problems that are perpetual.

Gottman Method can help you and your partner navigate frequent conflicts and arguments, poor communication skills. It can also help you work through specific problems like infidelity, money problems, addiction, parenting problems, and difficulties with your sex life.

Sound House Relationship Theory 

The Sound House Relationship Theory is similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs. There are nine essential parts of a relationship that build upon each other to help you and your partner achieve a successful and fulfilling relationship. Each step relies on the success of the previous step. The Sound House Relationship Theory states that the foundation of all romantic relationships is understanding one another’s worlds. It states that once you establish this understanding, you can learn to share fondness, which  encourages you to lean on one another, embrace positive perspectives, manage conflict, achieve your dreams and, finally, create shared meaning. The nine components of healthy relationships include:  

• Building love maps 
• Sharing fondness and admiration 
• Turning towards (as opposed to turning away from each other) 
• The positive perspective (seeing your partner as a friend, not an adversary) 
• Managing conflict 
• Making life dreams come true 
• Creating shared meaning 
• Trust 
• Commitment

Gottman's Four Horsemen

The Gottman Method uses an analogy called Gottman's Four Horsemen to characterize poor communication styles and responses that can destroy your relationship. The analogy borrows the horsemen metaphor from the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the New Testament of the Bible, but instead it exchanges Conquest, War, Hunger, and Death) with:

• Criticism - Attacking a partner for who they are rather than a specific thing they did.
• Contempt - Assuming a morally superior position instead of affirming the qualities that you like in your partner or the positive things they do. This often builds from small, unaddressed conflicts.
• Defensiveness - Being defensive involves finding excuses or reallocating blame rather than taking responsibility during a criticism.  The counter to stop your defensiveness is to accept your partner's opinion, apologize, and move on.
• Stonewalling - Shutting down conversation or tuning out rather than communicating, often as a response to contempt. This can be difficult to overcome, especially when you are overwhelmed. The best way to avoid stonewalling is to acknowledge that you are overwhelmed and need to step away from the conversation until you are able to speak rationally and kindly.