10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy by Julie Schwartz Gottman John M. Gottman (review)

Abstract

issn 0362-4021 © 2021 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 45, No. 1, Fall 2021 97 1 Supervisor, Training Institute for Mental Health. Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel Diamond, LCSW, Training Institute for Mental Health, 115 W. 27th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001. E-mail: daniel@diamondmentalhealth.com. Book Review 10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy. By Julie Schwartz Gottman and John M. Gottman. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2015, 258 pp. Reviewed by Daniel Diamond1 Drs. Julie and John Gottman are as close to a celebrity power couple as we are likely to find in the field of couple therapy. Here they offer a valuable initiation to the practice. Highly readable and even exciting, thanks to the generous inclusion of well-drawn clinical examples, this book will help the novice couple therapist start out on the right foot. There is a natural affinity between group therapy and couple therapy, a dyad being , of course, the smallest group possible. Both modalities necessarily involve the provision of a holding environment for multiple, sometimes conflictual subjectivities while requiring that the therapist track and understand the interpersonal dynamics at play. Couple work, however, is not merely group work in miniature. The couple therapist must be prepared to navigate a world of secrets, desires, betrayals, pain, hope, blame, competition, and attachment injury stretching all the way back to the first date and into the darkness of the conjugal bed. It is common for a couple to provide the therapist with radically divergent, seemingly irreconcilable versions of recent events. Unlike the interactions between therapy group members, most of the couple’s interactions take place outside the view of the therapist. This difference alone makes couple therapy a different undertaking, one requiring its own specific training, or at least a guidebook such as the one under review. Dr. John Gottman started performing observational research on couple interaction in the 1970s, later teaming up with Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman. They performed a series of studies of married couples, identifying a set of relational factors that make for happy or unhappy couples. Based on this research, they created the Gottman 98 diamond Method and founded the Gottman Institute, which continues their research into the signifiers of high and low relationship satisfaction. The institute also offers therapy to couples and provides therapists training and certification in the Gottman Method. In 10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy, the Gottmans aim to provide “a very humble and human guide to the practice of couples therapy” (p. 3), one that will help the therapist approach the work “with hope and confidence, not trepidation and quaking” (p. 4). In service of this goal, the authors have boiled down their extensive research and experience to 10 principles, each of which gets its own chapter. Some of these principles can be seen as concrete steps (e.g., “The Second Principle: Assess First, Then Decide on Treatment”). Others are closer to overall stances or perspectives that the therapist is encouraged to hold throughout treatment (e.g., “The Fifth Principle: Soothe Yourself, Then Intervene”). Crucially, fully half of the book concerns work done by the therapist in advance of the first session, as the first five principles relate to assessment, treatment planning, and mental and emotional readiness on the part of the therapist. Among the Gottmans’ most famous contributions to the field of couple therapy is the identification of “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” According to the Gottmans’ longitudinal research, there are specific behaviors that, when chronically present in couple conflict, predict divorce: criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness. Arguments that include some combination of these four behaviors cannot lead to understanding, empathy, or safety. Instead, they lead to an escalating repetition of the same argument and result in the estrangement of the couple. In the Seventh Principle, the Gottmans provide a guide to recognizing the Horsemen when they show up. They also provide a nuts-and-bolts system for helping couples replace this destructive language with softer, more open, and more intimate forms of communication. The book is full of warnings about how difficult couple therapy can be. There are stories of therapist frustration, fear, hopelessness, anger, and confusion. Couple therapy...