Gottman Method Couple Therapy

Front 1

Researchers have been able to predict the fate of marriages in three measurement domains:

Back 1

1. Interactive behavior

2. Perception (self-report questionnaires, interviews, and video playback)

3. physiology

(the Core Triad)

Front 2

Define "gridlocked"

Back 2

• When a perpetual conflict becomes destructive

Signs of gridlock:

• The conflict leaves you feeling rejected by your partner.
• No matter how much you talk about it, you feel thwarted.
• Despite your best attempts, you are making absolutely no headway in the problem area.
• You become so impossibly entrenched in your positions that neither you nor your partner plan to budge.
  
• Anytime the subject comes up, you invariably feel frustrated and hurt.
• Your conversations about the problem are unpleasant as can be, entirely devoid of humor, amusement, or expressions of affection.
• Your inability to budge increases with the passage of time, leading the two of you to vilify each other when this conflict arises.
• In an infuriating catch-22, the reverse also manages to occur: as you vilify each other, your inability to budge and polarization in your views increases, and your chances of reaching a compromise plummet.
• Upon traversing this delightful territory, the two of you end up in the land of total emotional disengagement.

Front 3

Patterns in marriage likely to predict divorce

Back 3

• Escalating conflict
  
• A disengaged pattern with marked absence of both negative and positive affect.

Front 4

What are some of the characteristics of "gentle startup"?

Back 4

Accepting influence, compromise, low physiological arousal, humor, affection

Front 5

What is DPA (diffuse physiological arousal)?

Back 5

DPA includes sweating, increased heart rate, and other negative signs of physical arousal associated with a lack of ability to physiologically self-soothe.

Front 6

What is the basis for "dialogue" with a perpetual issues?

Back 6

Understanding (and dealing with) the core existential meaning of the dialogue.

Front 7

What three bi-directionally working systems need to be understood?

Back 7

1. Conflict

2. Friendship/intimacy/positive affect

3. Shared meaning

Front 8

Sound Relationship House Theory

Back 8

Front 9

Describe the Sound Relationship House Theory.

Back 9

1. Build Love Maps

2. Admiration and Fondness

3. Turn toward, not away

4. Positive perspective

5. Manage conflict

6. Life dreams come true

7. Shared meaning

Front 10

Gottman Method of Therapy

Back 10

• Systematic assessment of a relationship's strengths and challenges that need improvement.
  
• 1 conjoint session, 2 individual sessions (interviews):

--What brings them into therapy?
--Ask questions about the history and philosophy of the relationship and their parent's relationships.

• Tape a conflict discussion with physiological monitoring
• Conduct individual sessions
  
• Fill out questionnaires that follow sound house theory
  
• 3rd session: present the assessment to the couple and discuss treatment goals
  
• Therapy is emotion focused, experiential, and centered in the here-and-now.
  

The therapist helps the couple down-regulate negative conflict, enhance positive affect, and create shared meaning in the relationship.

3 types of "blueprints": dealing with current conflicts, dealing with past conflicts and emotional injuries, and the last one for dealing with conflicts that have an existential basis (gridlocked conflicts).

Front 11

3 types of "blueprints" to guide therapy

Back 11

1. dealing with current conflicts

2. dealing with past conflicts and emotional injuries

3. dealing with conflicts that have an existential basis (gridlocked conflicts).

These blueprints make explicit the skills necessary to accomplish therapeutic goals.

Front 12

Role of the Therapist

Back 12

The therapist is...

• a validating, compassionate coach
• a translator of feelings and needs of each person
• facilitates a dyadic process in therapy
• explains and teaches constructive alternative to the couple's ineffective patterns of interactions.
  

Front 13

Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse

Back 13

1. Contempt

2. Criticism

3. Stonewalling

4. Defensiveness

Front 14

Prosocial functions of conflict?

Back 14

1. Culling out interactions that don't work

2. Helping to know one another as we change

3. Continually renewing courtship

Front 15

What percentage of couple conflicts are unsolvable?

Back 15

69%

Front 16

How do partners process regrettable incidents?

Back 16

1. Taking turns talking about their feelings

2. Taking turns describing subjective realities

3. Validating part of partner's reality

4. Admitting their role in the conflict

5. Talking about one way to make the conversation better next time

Front 17

Most of the time couples fight about...?

Back 17

Absolutely nothing

Front 18

Antidote to criticism? (stating a problem as a deficit in the partner's character)

Back 18

"I" statements and positively stated needs

Front 19

Antidote to defensiveness? (self protection through whining *"innocent victim stance", counterattacking *righteous indignation stance",

Back 19

Taking responsibility

Front 20

Antidote to contempt? (sarcasm, name calling, direct insults, correcting partner's grammar when one is angry, put-downs)

Back 20

respect

Front 21

Antidote to stonewalling? (emotional disengagement, male with heartbeat over 100bpm)

Back 21

self-soothing and staying emotionally engaged

Front 22

Define "processing a fight"

Back 22

being able to talk about it without getting into it again.

Front 23

what are the five central processes that make relationships successful?

Back 23

1. down-regulate negative affect during conflict

2. up regulate negative affect during conflict

3. build positive affect during conflict

4. bridge meta-emotion mismatch

5. create and nurture a shared meaning system

Front 24

what is the ratio of positive to negative in a good relationship structure?

Back 24

5:1; positive to negative

Front 25

Openness to information and energy as well as a heightened awareness to sensual responding and memories refer to...?

Back 25

savoring of positive affect

Front 26

contempt and disgust might have been the basis for the evolution of....?

Back 26

morality

Front 27

emotion coaching is about what?

Back 27

periodically taking one's partner's emotional temperature by asking a question such as "how are you? talk to me."

Front 28

steps for down-regulating negative affect during conflict (interventions)

Back 28

1. repair-processing fights and regrettable incidents

2. reducing 4 horsemen

3. blueprint for speaker and listener ("I" positive statements

4. problems solving/persuasion/compromise

5. blue print for perpetual conflict/dreams w/in conflict

6. down regulating with physiological soothing

Front 29

steps for up regulating positive affect during conflict

Back 29

1. 5:1

2. emotional hierarchy: attention, interest, conversations, humor, affection, emotional support/empathy

3. turning toward bids

4. building love maps

5. savoring

6. daily stress-reducing conversations

7. build affection, good sex, romance, passion

8. process failed bids for emotional connection

Front 30

steps for bridging meta-emotion mismatches and creating shared meaning

Back 30

build rituals

shared life goals

Front 31

what are the 2 most common errors of new therapists?

Back 31

1. not working in the moment due to being caught up in following prescribed methods

2. not understanding existential nature of the dreams within the conflict

Front 32

what does resistance reveal?

Back 32

where the person is stuck in his/her relationships

Front 33

how might resistance manifest?

Back 33

1. distrust of therapist

2. fear of intimacy

Front 34

Is Gottman time-limited?

Back 34

no generally not

Front 35

What are the six minimal beliefs?

Back 35

1. commitment is necessary

2. sexual/romantic exclusivity

3. no secrets, deceptions, betrayals

4. fairness and care

5. respect and affection

6. agreement in principle to try to meet another's wants and needs

Front 36

what are some of the theories Gottman draws upon?

Back 36

analytic, behavioral, existential, emotionally focused, narrative, systems

Front 37

emotion dismissing people value action over...?

Back 37

introspection