Gottman Couples Therapy

The foundation of Gottman couples therapy is based on Dr. John and Julie Gottman’s 40+ years of clinical experience and research that is based on interventions and exercises that are structured, goal-oriented and scientifically-based.

What some of the research has shown is that couples need to be able to work on becoming better friends, learn to manage conflict, and create ways to support each other’s hopes for the future.

If you have received your login information from your therapist for the Gottman Relationship Checkup, you can access it here.

9 Components to Gottman Therapy

There are 9 key components of healthy relationships which therapists and this model tend to focus on. These 9 components include:

• building Love Maps
• Sharing fondness and Admiration
• Turning Towards your partner
• having a Positive Perspective
• Managing Conflict
• Making Life Dreams Come Tru
• Creating Shared Meaning
• Having trust
• Commitment

Understanding Lovemaps involves knowing the partners in the world, the history, their stresses, their worries, and their joys and hopes. Sharing fondness and admiration focuses on increasing affection and respect.

Turning Towards involves connecting and responding to one’s partner, while the Positive Perspective is having a positive approach throughout this process. The concept of Managing Conflict is important as couples will continue to engage in conflict, which is not a problematic thing, but it depends on how the couples conflict. All of this leads to helping individuals make their Life dreams come true, which then leads to creating shared meaning by living through these experiences.

All of this is under the umbrella and or walls of trust and commitment to the process and one’s partner.

4 Horseman

One of the other main concepts identified in Gottman’s couple therapy is the “4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse” of relationships.

These “4 Horsemen” are negative interactions that are highly predictive of relationship failure. These are:

• Criticism
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

Criticism involves a more global negative statement about one’s partner’s character or personality.

Contempt commonly involves statements that are either sarcastic or cynical. These also include name-calling, eye-rolling, sneering or mockery and hostile forms of humor. Contempt is poisonous to relationships because it conveys disgust and ultimately leads to more conflict.

Defensiveness is when an individual does not back down or apologize for their behavior and tends to engage in defensive response which tends to feel like blaming. This escalates conflict.

Finally, Stonewalling is commonly experienced when these first three Horsemen occur over time which then leads to one partner tuning out in order to avoid the barrage of the three previous horsemen (commonly seen as disengaging or avoiding types of behavior).

Gottman Approved Therapists

Insight Psychological is proud to feature Gottman™ approved Therapists at our locations. Contact us for more information and to book an appointment.

Gottman Relationship Checkup

The Gottman Relationship Checkup is designed as a tool for use by the therapists at Insight Psychological in a therapeutic setting.

This tool streamlines the relationship assessment process for your therapist, providing personalized, clinical feedback plus specific recommendations for treatment based on your answers.

The questionnaire is composed of 480 questions about friendship, intimacy, emotions, conflict, values, and trust, as well as parenting, housework, finances, individual areas of concern, and more.

The actual time it takes to complete each assessment varies based on individual responses, the complexity of relationship dynamics, and the optional use of comment areas to provide additional information about the relationship. On average, you can expect to spend between 1-2 hours completing the questionnaire.

When you have both completed your individual questionnaires, your therapist will be notified and will be able to securely log in to review your scores and the analysis of your relationship. Your therapist will be able to discuss the results with you and suggest a treatment plan for improving and strengthening your relationship.

For more information about taking the Gottman online relationship checkup, contact us at one of our locations.

If you have received your login information from your therapist for the Gottman Relationship Checkup, you can access it here.