Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Author: Visit Amazon's Sue Johnson Page | Language: English | ISBN:
031611300X | Format: PDF
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Description
Review
"A much needed message to all couples and therapists and I recommend it to all."—
Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.,
author of Getting the Love You Want and Receiving Love"At last, a road map through Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy with its creator. Dr. Johnson's superb science, humor, and clinical wisdom are finally accessible to all of us. I couldn't pick a smarter, warmer, and more real guide for this journey."—
John Gottman, Ph.D.,
bestselling author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and coauthor of And Baby Makes Three"There's something appealing about this book's honest, no-holds-barred approach. By creating complete emotional safety and by willing to be fearless about it, it seems to me, not only can real love be kept alive, it can flourish"—
Boston GlobeSue Johnson [is] the most original contributor to couples therapy to come along in the last 30 years. This book will touch your heart, stimulate your mind, and give you practical strategies for improving your marriage. It will be an instant classic.—
William J. Doherty, Ph.D.,
author of Take Back Your MarriageWonderful!...Hold Me Tight blends the best in research findings with practical suggestions from a caring and compassionate clinician. This fabulous book will be of great benefit...to couples trying to find their way to better communication and deeper, more fulfilling ways of being with each other. Bravo!—
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.,
author of Parenting from the Inside OutA truly revolutionary, breakthrough book... the most important, valuable book for couples published in the 21st century.—
Barry McCarthy, Ph.D.,
author of Getting It Right the First TimeAbout the Author
Dr. Sue Johnson is a clinical psychologist and Distinguished Research Professor at Alliant International University in San Diego, CA. The developer of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, she is a recognized leader in the new science of relationships. Dr. Johnson is the author of numerous books and articles, and she has trained thousands of therapists in North America and around the world. She lives in Ottawa, Canada. For more information on Dr. Sue Johnson and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, visitwww.eft.caandwww.holdmetight.com.
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 300 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (April 8, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 031611300X
- ISBN-13: 978-0316113007
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The problem with therapy and relationship books is that they are all the equivalent of medieval "medicine." There is no science, no data-driven outcomes, no predictive hypothesis testing and hence no real progress. Every practitioner has their own set of nostrums, some helpful and some absurd, just like every witch-doctor has his own set of feathers and fetish items. Step forward Sue Johnson. Although she has taken only baby-steps towards a true scientific model of attachment relationships, it's welcome progress indeed. Unlike the vast majority of her peers, she grasps that our behaviors have been fashioned by selection pressure over the millennia. She looks for why such behaviors should have adaptive value, and this enables her to side-step the mumbo-jumbo of co-dependence, inappropriate behavior, etc. and get right to the heart of what seems to be going on between couples when their relationship is in trouble.
For people who want confirmation that their partner is "too clingy" or "too cold" or whatever, this is not the book for you. Nor is it a "why you should be strong and suck it up" book. It is about our basic needs, our need for at least one other adult human being to be there for us when we need it. It is about why we're wired up to be that way, what kinds of behaviors result from this hard-wiring, how things can go wrong, and how things can be fixed. At the heart of the book is Johnson's vision of us as all needing at least one refuge, one place of safety and support in an otherwise indifferent and cold universe. Unfortunately, for most people, marriage or an equivalent domestic relationship fails to provide this refuge because we keep misunderstanding our partner's needs and impulses - and very often we misunderstand our own too.
This, together with Gottman's book, is an attempt to deliver an objective and clear guide to resolving relationship difficulties and/or strengthening them. This book (unlike Gottman's) is rooted in attachment theory, which is probably the closest thing to a scientifically based approach to human relationships, or at least there's a biological and evolutionary framework for understanding our emotional needs in relationships. The need for this objective foundation for understanding relationships is pretty obvious when you begin to read through the literature; most of it is vague, superficial or embarrassingly facile. This book attempts to tether its approach to something concrete and verified: we need to be and to feel securely connected to our mates and this need is confirmed in all sorts of ways, both with scientific studies and in anecdotal and clinical settings.
The problem is: what exactly is a secure attachment? When Sue Johnson presents case studies, the answer is something like: partner's need to reaffirm there basic desire and need for a secure attachment. This is done by saying things like: I really need to feel connected, loved, appreciated, valued and desired by you. Relationships flourish when these connected feelings are expressed and reaffirmed. But when you get down to nuts and bolts what behavior exactly, both verbal and physical, constitutes an expression of attachment? And here I think this book fairs about as well as any other.
The fact is that the ways that people can express and feel attached to each is about as varied as all the forms of expression that are available to human beings.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Preview
Link
Please Wait...