Your Private Thoughts Become Cast In Stone Analysis

Your Private Thoughts Become Cast in Stone In this chapter Dr. Gottman is describing how out “negative inner script” can lead to a downward spiral. If the four horsemen are taking root in your marriage, you are more likely to have negative thoughts. After studying many couples he saw two major categories of thought: thoughts of innocent victimhood or righteous indignation. Now we will look at the two categories more intently. Usually someone displaying signs of defensiveness or stonewalling think of himself or herself as the victim. Gottman argues that there is a benefit to this thought or people wouldn’t think it. The most glaring problem with the innocent victim mindset is that it allows mental freedom of responsibility. Obviously, if it is the other person’s entire fault there is no need for you to do anything to fix it. Righteous indignation is usually felt by someone with contempt or a stonewaller. There are similarities with the innocent victim mindset, but this one includes hostility and contempt. To …show more content…
This happens when there is an overload of thoughts, emotions, and chemicals. Hostility, defensiveness, and withdrawal are some of the common effects of flooding. There is also no certain threshold for flooding; it typically differs case to case. Some factors that do play into flooding are gender and stress outside of marriage. It is good to note that when someone is flooded it’s virtually impossible to have constructive discussions. The body has been designed by God to react in amazing ways when under stress or threat. Our bodies respond to sensory data received, and that affects blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing. All of this acts as a feedback loop, which can lead to increased bodily responses. Dr. Gottman and his team monitored couples during discussions and they documented the findings. The results were pretty interesting and just prove that the body does speak to