The Gottman Method is built on decades of research and observation into how couples interact. John and Julie Gottman found that negativity has a strong impact on our brains, and that, unless couples take steps to counteract instances of negativity, they grow apart emotionally. The method identifies and addresses the states of mind and behaviors shown to underlie intimacy and helps partners maintain a positive orientation to each other that can sustain them through upsetting circumstances.
The resulting treatment focuses on the nine components of a healthy relationship, what the Gottman’s calls “The Sound Relationship House.” It includes the following:
Build Love Maps: Assessing how well partners know each other’s inner world: their hopes, stressors, worries, and desires.
Share Fondness and Admiration: A focus on the level of respect and tenderness that exists between the couple. Gottman calls this level “the antidote for contempt.”
Turn Towards Instead of Away: Being aware of your partner and responding when you can sense they need something emotionally.
The Positive Perspective: Approaching problems and repairing relationship failures with a positive attitude.
Manage Conflict: While conflict in a relationship is inevitable, and can even sometimes be beneficial, Gottman says, managing it is different from resolving it. Some problems can be fixed, but many relationship conflicts must simply be managed.
Make Life Dreams Come True: Creating an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about their hopes, values, convictions and aspirations.
Create Shared Meaning: Understanding important narratives, myths, and metaphors about the relationship.
Trust: Gottman defines trust as partners knowing that each will think and act in the best interest of the other.
Commitment: Knowing that your partner will stick with you through the rough patches and work to get through them. It involves a focus on gratitude for who your partner is and what they do in the relationship.
These nine components make up some of the questions for the assessment. The assessment is called the Gottman Relationship Check up.
