Gottman

Building Your Love Map: Discover the Gottman Method

The Gottman Method is not just another approach to couple therapy—it is a scientifically-validated roadmap for relationship success. Developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman, this method is grounded in over 40 years of breakthrough research, including extensive studies on thousands of couples, that can predict with over 90% accuracy which relationships will succeed and which will fail.

The core insight of the Gottman Method is that friendship, intimacy, and shared meaning are the keys to a thriving relationship, not just effective communication during arguments.

What Makes the Gottman Method Unique?

The Gottman Method is built on the philosophy of the Sound Relationship House Theory . This model organizes the elements of a healthy relationship into a nine-level structure, focusing on actionable steps that couples can take to build stability and satisfaction from the ground up:

1. Build Love Maps: Know your partner’s inner world, history, worries, hopes, and dreams.
2. Share Fondness and Admiration: Express affection and respect for one another.
3. Turn Towards: Respond to your partner’s bids for emotional connection.
4. The Positive Perspective: Maintain a positive view of your partner and the relationship.
5. Manage Conflict: Use healthy techniques to discuss problems and learn to cope with perpetual problems (which most couples have) with humor and acceptance.
6. Make Life Dreams Come True: Support each other’s aspirations and personal goals.
7. Create Shared Meaning: Establish rituals, goals, and values that give your life together purpose.

The Four Horsemen: Identifying Relationship Killers

A cornerstone of the Gottman research is the ability to identify the relationship behaviors that rapidly lead to divorce or separation, which they term the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. Learning to recognize and replace these behaviors is essential to the therapy process:

• Criticism: Attacking your partner’s personality or character, rather than the specific behavior.
• Contempt: Attacking your partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or abuse (e.g., sarcasm, rolling eyes). Contempt is the single greatest predictor of divorce.
• Defensiveness: Seeing yourself as an innocent victim and making excuses, which prevents problem-solving.
• Stonewalling: Withdrawing from the interaction and conversation, often physically or emotionally, to shut down dialogue.

How Therapy Helps

In the Gottman Method, the therapist acts as a coach to help you move away from the Four Horsemen and build the positive dynamics in the Sound Relationship House. The focus is on affect regulation—the ability to maintain positive emotions and kindness, even during conflict. You learn to:

• Soothe yourselves and each other during difficult discussions.
• Use repair attempts (statements or actions that prevent conflict from escalating) effectively.
• Dialogue about your problems without getting “gridlocked” on perpetual issues.
• Increase moments of fun, affection, and positive interaction daily.

By utilizing this empirically-tested framework, the Gottman Method empowers you to strengthen your relationship’s friendship foundation and create a truly lasting partnership.