How is The Gottman Method different from other types of couples therapy?

Infographic based on Gottman’s research

Infographic based off on Gottman’s research

• Researched-Based

• Dyadic and allows couples to apply skills during session in order to modify arguments so that they are more productive outside of session.

• Designed to increase admiration for one another and enhance friendship—providing partners with the mutual understanding and skills that will serve them long after therapy is complete.

Gottman Method Couples Therapy

What is Gottman Method Couples Therapy?

Developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman of The Gottman Institute, Gottman Method Couples Therapy is a research-based approach to strengthening relationships.

Dr. John Gottman has been studying relationships for decades, gaining insight about what makes relationships last. Over 3,000 couples participated in long-term research studies, which led to the development of one of the leading methods of couples therapy.

What are the goals of Gottman Method Couples Therapy?

-To increase respect, affection and closeness,
-Break through and resolve conflict when partners feel stuck,
-Generate greater understanding between partners,
-And keep conflict discussions calm.

How do we accomplish this?

Drs. Gottman developed “The Sound Relationship House” which includes the 9 components of a healthy relationship. A therapist who is trained in The Gottman Method can keep your therapeutic work on track by including activities in session which help your relationship in these areas:

1. Build Love Maps (or how well you know your partner’s inner world).

2. Share Fondness and Admiration (the antidotes to contempt).

3. Turn Towards (small moments of relationship bonding).

4. The Positive Perspective (maintain positive view of your partner even in times of conflict).

5. Manage Conflict (how to manage conflict even when there isn’t a clear resolution).

6. Make Life Dreams Come True (encourage the couple to share honestly about hopes, values and aspirations).

7. Create Shared Meaning (understand the important stories and dreams for your relationship).

8. Trust (creating a secure feeling in the relationship).

9. Commitment (believing and acting as committed life partners).

As a relationship therapist in Tampa, Florida

I’ve had the privilege of training with the Gottmans  and have completed Gottman Method Couples Therapy Levels I and II. Depending on your needs, I blend Gottman Method, NVC Communication and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)  to give your relationship the best chance of success!

Make an appointment: www.SouthTampaCounselor.com/BookAppointment

Six Hours to a Better Relationship

Minor shifts in the way you interact with your partner can have a major impact on your relationship. The research of Drs John and Julie Gottman has uncovered some clear patterns of couples who's relationship improved over time compared to those who did not. These successful couples simply devoted a few minutes a day to connect with their partner and to maintain a positive relationship. That's it. Not some dramatic relationship overhaul, but rather small efforts throughout the week that took only minutes at a time, accumulating to 6 hours total. Test it out for yourself.

Top Rated Marriage Counselor In Tampa

I am honored to be among the top 3 rated marriage counselors in Tampa!

Thank you so very much for this recognition. I love what I do!

Feeling Honored and Passionate About Helping Couples & Families! ~Liz

Building Love Maps

THE RESEARCH

Dr. John Gottman has spent over 40 years studying marital stability through direct scientific observations of more than 3,000 couples. His research has provided him with valuable in- sight into what makes relationships succeed and fail. In fact, after sitting down with a couple for as little as 15 minutes, he can predict whether or not that couple will divorce with over 90% accuracy!

Together with his wife Dr. Julie Gottman, Dr. John Gottman developed the Sound RelationshipHouse Theory of successful relationships based on his breakthrough research findings. He considers this to be more rewarding than his divorce prediction model because it provides couples with scientifically proven tools to strengthen and divorce-proof their marriage.

BUILDING LOVE MAPS

Do you know what kind of salad dressing your partner likes? Do you know what their biggest stressor is right now? Is religion important to them? What are some of their deepest fears?

These are examples of details you may or may not know about your partner, and they restored in what Dr. Gottman calls your Love Maps. Enhancing your Love Maps is the first level of the Sound Relationship House, and Dr. Gottman uses this term to describe the part of your brain where you keep all the relevant information about your partner’s life. Emotionally intelligent couples remember all the major events in each other’s history, and continuously update their information as the facts and feelings of their spouse’s would change.

Knowing your partner not only deepens your bond, but also prepares you better for stressful events and conflict. In one study, Dr. Gottman found that after the birth of the first baby,67% of couples experiences a decline in marital satisfaction, while the other 33% did not experience this decline. In fact, half of these couples saw an improvement in their marriage.

What caused the difference in satisfaction between these two groups? Love Maps. The couples whose marriages thrived after the birth had a deep understanding of each other’s worlds. The couples who didn’t start off with a deep knowledge about each other were thrown off course when they faced a dramatic shift in their lives.

Detailed Love Maps protected couples in the wake of this dramatic upheaval. Because husband and wife were already in the habit of keeping up to date and were intently aware of what each other was feeling and thinking, their marriage remained stable. But if couple don’t start off with a deep knowledge and understanding of each other, it’s easy for a marriage to lose its way when lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.

Having a baby is just one life event that can cause couples to fall apart if they don’t have a detailed Love Map. Any major change - such as the loss of a job, an illness, or retirement - can have the same effect on your relationship. This is why it’s crucial to keep up to date on your partner’s Love Map. The more you know and understand about each other, the easier it is to stay connected when life swirls around you.

WHY CAN’T WE BE FRIENDS?

Enhancing your Love Maps is really just about building your friendship on an intimate level.Research shows that the determining factor in whether wives and husbands feel satisfied with the sex, romance, and passion in their marriage is, by 70%, the quality of the couple’s friendship. So get to know each other! Ask your partner about their day and remember the little things about them. In times of conflict and despair, it will be your intimate friendship that strengthens your relationship.

THE LOVE MAPS 20 QUESTIONS GAME

Now that you understand the importance of building Love Maps, and have assessed the quality of you and your partner’s current Love Maps, play a fun, light-hearted game with your partner. The more you play, the more you’ll learn about the Love Maps concept and how to apply it to your relationship.

Step 1: Both you and your partner take a piece of paper, and with a pen, write down twenty number between 1 and 60.

Step 2: On the next page is a list of numbered questions. Beginning with the top of your column, match the numbers you chose with the corresponding question. Each of you should ask your partner this question. If your spouse answers correctly (you be the judge), he or she receives a point. If your partner responds incorrectly, neither of you receives any points. The same rules apply when you answer. The winner is the person with the higher score after you’ve both answer all twenty questions.

Play this game as frequently as you’d like. The more you play, the more you’ll come to understand the concept of a Love Map and the kind of information yours should include about your spouse.

1. Name two of my closest friends (2)
2. What is my favorite musical group, composer, or instrument? (2)
3. What was I wearing when we first met? (2)

4. Name one of my hobbies. (3)
5. Where was I born? (1)
6. What stresses am I facing right now? (4)
7. Describe in detail what I did today, or yesterday. (4)

8. When is my birthday? (1)
9. What is the date of our anniversary? (1) 

10. Who is my favorite relative? (2)
11. What is my fondest unrealized dream? (5) 

12. What is my favorite website? (2)
13. What is one of my greatest fears or disaster scenarios? (3)
14. What is my favorite time of day for lovemaking? (3)
15. What makes me feel most competent? (4)
16. What turns me on sexually? (3)
17. What is my favorite meal? (2)
18. What is my favorite way to spend an evening? (2) 

19. What is my favorite color? (1)
20. What personal improvements do I want to the least? (3)

21. What kind of present would I like best? (2) 

22. What was one of my best childhood experiences? (2)
23. What was my favorite vacation? (2)
24. What is one of my favorite ways to relax? (4) 

25. Who is my greatest source of support (other than you)? (3)

30. What is my favorite movie? (2)

31. What are some of the important events coming up in my life? How do I feel about them? (4) 

32. What are some of my favorite ways to work out? (2)
33. Who was my best friend in childhood? (3)
34. What is one of my favorite magazines? (2)
35. Name one of my major rivals or enemies. (3) 

36. What would I consider my dream job? (4)
37. What do I fear the most? (4)
38. Who is my least favorite relative? (3)
39. What is my favorite holiday? (2)
40. What kinds of books do I most like to read? (3) 

41. What is my favorite TV show? (2)
42. Which side of the bed do I prefer? (2)
43. What am I most sad about? (4)
44. Name one of my concerns or worries. (4)
45. What medical problems do I worry about? (2) 

46. What was my most embarrassing moment? (3) 

47. What was my worst childhood experience? (3) 

48. Name two people I most admire. (4)
49. Name my favorite ice cream flavor. (2)
50. Of all the people we both know, who do I like
51. What is one of my favorite desserts? (2) 

52. What is my social security number? (2)
53. Name one of my novels. (2)
54. What is my favorite restaurant? (2)
55. What are two of my aspirations, hopes, make in my life? (4)
56. Do I have a secret ambition? What is it? (4) 

57. What foods do I hate? (2)
58. What is my favorite animal? (2)
59. What is my favorite song? (2)
60. Which sports teams is my favorite? (2)

ASKING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

Now that you understand the concept of Love Maps, we will provide you with a list of open-ended questions to ask your partner. These are questions that can’t be answered with a quick “yes” or “no.” You and your partner will take turns being the speaker and the listener. After your partner answers your question, follow up with an open-ended question of your own, then answer the original question you asked your partner. Then your partner asks you an open-ended question, and so on. These questions take longer to answer, so you don’t have to answer all of them in one sitting. This will be an enlightening way to build your love maps over time.

1. How would you like your life to be different three years from now?

2. Do you see your work changing in the future? How?

3. What is your opinion of your physical home? Would you make changes if you could?
4. How do you think your life would be different if lived a hundred years ago?

5. How would you compare yourself as a mother (father) to your mother (father)?

6. What kind of person do you think our child(ten) will become? Any fears? Hopes?

7. How are you feeling about your jobs these days?

8. If you could redo a five-year periods of your life, which would you choose?

9. How are you feeling right now about being a parent?

10. If you could change one thing in your past, what would it be?

11. What is the most exciting thing happening in your life right now?

16. What were the best and worst things that happened to you when you were a teen?

17. If you could live in another time in history, when would you choose and why?

18. If you could choose a different career or vocation, shat would it be, and why?

19. What is the one thing you would most lie to change about your personality? Why?

20. Do you feel like certain things are missing from your life? What are they?

21. Do you think you’ve changed in the last year? How so?

22. If you could design the perfect home for us, what would it be like?

23. If you could live another person’s life, whose would you choose?

24. Have any of your life goals recently changed?

25. What are some of you life dreams now?

26. What are your goals for us as family?

27. What goals do you have just for yourself right now?

All of the above questions will help you develop greater personal insight and a more de- tailed map of each other’s life and world. Getting to know your spouse better and sharing your inner self with your partner is an ongoing process. In fact, it’s a lifelong process. So think of questions to ask your partner; the key to sustaining a happy marriage is to periodically ask what’s going on in their life.

For all of their power, Love Maps are only a first step. Happily married couples don’t “just”know each other. They build on and enhance this knowledge in many important ways. There are six other levels of the Sound Relationship House that are key to a happy relationship, including nurturing fondness and admiration, turning towards each other, letting your partner influence you, solving your solvable problems, overcoming gridlock, and creating shared meaning. 

Turning Toward vs Turning Away vs Turning Against

Turning Towards Instead of Away

Let’s say your eccentric uncle Kevin gives you $10,000 on your wedding day. The only catch is that you have to invest it for six years with one of two firms that Kevin suggests. Firm A is well respected on Wall Street for both its ethics and its returns, and most clients are very happy even with sometimes modest gains. Firm B guarantees they’ll squander your money and blame you for it. Which one would you choose?

Or let’s say that on your wedding day, you get a diagnosis of a rare blood disease that usually kills its victims within six years. Your wacky aunt Cathy had that same disease and she knows of the only two doctors in the world that work with it. One doctor is actively doing research, testing new treatments, and curing patients with great success. The other is a drunk. Which doctor would you choose?

Or let’s say that on your wedding day, the universe starts a giant egg timer set for six years. When the egg timer goes off, you’ll either be divorced or you won’t. You’ve heard the rumor that 50% of marriages end in divorce, but Kevin and Cathy know some tips that can increase your odds of making it. More importantly, they know of a single strategy that would virtually guarantee that you would divorce before the timer went off. Would you want to know it?

Of course you would. You would invest with Firm A. You would choose the sober doctor. And you will do whatever it takes to ensure that you protected yourself from divorce. As it turns out, your aunt and uncle are onto something: there really is a secret.

As part of his research, Dr. Gottman conducted a study with newlyweds and then followed up with them six years later. Many of the couples had remained together. Many had divorced. The couples that stayed married were much better at one thing — the third level of the Sound Relationship House, Turn Towards Instead of Away. At the six-year follow up, couples that had stayed married turned towards one another 86% of the time. Couples that had divorced averaged only 33% of the time. The secret is turning towards.

I think this is a pretty incredible piece of data. It suggests that there is something you can today that will dramatically change the course of your relationship. More importantly, it suggests that there is something that you can not do that will lead to its demise. So, how do you turn towards instead of away? In order to understand turning, you have to first understand bids.

A bid is any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection. Bids show up in simple ways, a smile or wink, and more complex ways, like a request for advice or help. In general, women make more bids than men, but in the healthiest relationships, both partners are comfortable making all kinds of bids.

Bids can get tricky, however, and admittedly I sometimes miss more bids than I don’t. Indeed many men struggle in this regard, so it’s important to pay attention. Bids usually have a secondary layer – the true meaning behind the words. Call it the the difference between text and subtext. A few examples to get your brain going:

How do I look?Can I have your attention?

Let’s put the kids to bed.Can I have your help?

I talked to my sister today.Will you chat with me?

Did I tell you the one about…?Will you enjoy me?

Want to cuddle?Can I have your affection?

Want to play Cribbage?Will you play with me?

I had a terrible lunch meeting today.Will you help me destress?

To “miss” a bid is to “turn away.” Turning away can be devastating. It’s even more devastating than “turning against” or rejecting the bid. Rejecting a bid at least provides the opportunity for continued engagement and repair. Missing the bid results in diminished bids, or worse, making bids for attention, enjoyment, and affection somewhere else.

It is important that you learn to recognize bids and that you commit to making them to one another. Make the word “bids” part of your conversation and perhaps name your bids toward one another. It’s okay to say, “I’m making a bid for attention now” as you get to know each other in this early phase of your relationship. You can also practice discerning subtext together. Pick a show that is new to you both and watch it on mute. See if you can interpret the bids that the characters are making based only on non-verbals. Once you start to get intentional about your bids, you can concentrate on “turning towards.”

Turning towards starts with paying attention. Your work on bids will come in handy here. Simply recognizing that a bid has been made opens the door to response. If you’ve really been paying attention, you’ll respond to both the text and the subtext. As bids get more complicated, so will the nature of turning toward. For now, start simple. Take an inventory of the bids and turning in your relationship and share your responses with one another.

• What do I know about how I make bids?

• Could or should I get better at making bids? How?

• How good am I at recognizing the difference between text and subtext?

• What keeps me from making bids?

• What is my impulse for turning?

• Do I turn away or against more often than I turn towards?

• When it comes to turning towards, am I closer to 33% or 86%?

• What does it feel like when my partner doesn’t turn towards me?

• How can I get better at turning towards?

As you continue moving through life together, you will undoubtedly have to risk heading into more vulnerable territory. This will be easier if you’ve committed to building a solid friendship based on Building Love Maps, Sharing Fondness and Admiration, and Turning Towards Instead of Away. Your eccentric uncle Kevin and wacky aunt Cathy would be proud.

Source: https://www.gottman.com/blog/turn-toward-instead-of-away/

What "Turning Against' Really Means 

In our post on Monday, we discussed Dr. Gottman’s findings on the deeply destructive nature of “turning against” your partner’s bids. “Turning against” or “away” describes the behaviors in your interactions between you and your partner that, upon accumulation, categorically spell disaster for your relationship. Today, we would like to part the storm clouds a bit by offering you findings from Dr. Gottman’s research about the true causes of much of the behavior we described on Monday – the real reasons for which your partner may “turn against” you, lash out unexpectedly, or say things that they don’t really mean. We share this information with you in hopes that it will help you to learn the ways in which you can manage conflict constructively. We would like, in short, to offer you help in coping with the most trying interactions in your relationship.  

The first step in building the skills that Dr. Gottman teaches in his marital therapy is understanding – answering the question that may come up when such interactions unexpectedly throw themselves into your life – when your partner snaps at you out of nowhere. Dr. Gottman has discovered that there is an enormous difference between what you think your partner is saying when they “turn against” your bids and what their behavior’s cause usually is! Here is what Dr. Gottman has found “turning against”  says and what it actually means.

“Turning Against” Says:

• Your need for attention makes me angry.

• I feel hostile towards you.

• I don’t respect you.

• I don’t value you or this relationship.

• I want to hurt you.

• I want to drive you away.

“Turning Against” Usually Means: In a direct quote from Dr. Gottman himself, “Unlike ‘turning away’ responses, ‘turning against’ has a bite to it. It’s hard to hear such responses without thinking, ‘That’s mean’ or ‘That was uncalled for.’ Still, I doubt that most people who turn against their loved ones really intend to cause as much harm to their relationships as they do in these exchanges. Rather, they may simply have developed a personal style of relating that’s characteristically crabby or irritable.” Dr. Gottman’s research has revealed that such prickliness is often “the result of many factors, such as having too many demands on your time, not having enough peace of mind, or the lack of a satisfying purpose or direction for your life. Often it’s a spillover of self-criticism that has its origins in the distant past. The problem may also be biologically based irritability that is chemically related to depression.”

Whatever the source may be of your partner’s choice to “turn against” your bids for attention, affection, or support, it still hurts. Sometimes, it hurts a LOT. The build up of ignored bids can end up causing long-term problems in relationships. When your partner habitually responds to you by “turning against” your bids for connection, you feel that you can’t ask them for support and the two of you may drift apart entirely, because it feels impossible to sustain your relationship. Again, we have to stress: You are not alone! Hopefully understanding that the underlying causes for your partner’s behavior are rarely as malicious as they may feel, that what they say and what they mean are usually oceans apart, can help you to take these sudden attacks less personally. 

Of course, these words offer sparse comfort on their own – to understand is only the first step in the journey towards moving away from dangerous patterns of interaction. But it is a necessary first step. We will take you through the next steps (applying this new knowledge) in the next few weeks on The Gottman Relationship Blog. For more details, make sure to find a copy of Dr. Gottman’s bestselling books in a bookstore near you: The Relationship Cure, Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, and of course, his new book, What Makes Love Last!

Source: https://www.gottman.com/blog/what-turning-against-really-means/

The Art of Comprise and Core Needs

Core Needs Exercise

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood” -Stephen Covey

 What is a Core Need?

A core need is something that you need to feel like yourself in any situation. When a core need is met you are able to be more present to what is actually happening, rather than being over-focused or desperate about that need. The desperation can be a symptom or a signal that a core need is not being met, and your mind is trying to address it by giving it your mental/emotional attention. 

Consider, for example, that you are taking a long hike in the hills and after a few miles you reach for your water bottle and it isn’t where you thought you put it. Your mind will be driven to search for it, because on this hike adequate hydration is a core need. If you can’t find the water bottle and the sun is bearing down on you, then most of your actions are going to be focused on getting that water to meet that core hydration need. It is going to bug you, compel you and drive you until you can address the water issue. Once the water core need is met, you will be able to continue the hike and be more present to the fuller experience of your surroundings.

Here is another example: You work hard all day with mental problems and when you arrive home, your head is still mulling over those problems. There is an argument with family members soon after you arrive home. When you step back and look at what is actually happening, you discover your head is still in work mode from the day while you are trying to connect with your family members. 

Therefore, you might have the core need of “transition time". To address that core need, one option might be a 30 minute buffer time to change clothes, acclimate to being home, and allow your head to power down from the flow of mental problem-solving.

Let us say you don’t get that buffer and you put yourself in the middle of the family. Most likely you will be pulled inside in two different directions: trying to disconnect mentally and emotionally from the work of the day and trying to connect in the present moment with the family. This often results in feelings of frustration and fights about things that usually are not stressful, because you are torn inside with competing interests. A 30-minute buffer and transition time--especially if the family understands your need and it makes sense to them--would make it more possible for you to “feel like yourself” at home and be more present to what is actually occurring there.

As you can see, core needs are by their nature inflexible: you NEED the water and you NEED your transition time or you will be hurting yourself physically and/or emotionally. 

So in working things out with others, it is best not to compromise a core need. You function best from where you are flexible. You may find that as you discuss the issue of work/home transitions with your family, that they each have a core need to be “greeted” when you arrive home. Since you would know you are going to get your transition time, you might be flexible to delay it a few minutes so you could check in on each member and say hello. If there is an agreement about your transition time—your family knows you need your 30 minutes and they are aware of the benefit when you have that time--they could encourage you and support you in taking that time after the greeting. Everybody wins with these agreements, and compromise does not sacrifice any core needs.

NOTE: Core Needs are more possible to identify when you are applying this process to an actual situation, such as: when I get home in the afternoon from work I need a transition time, rather than a generalized core need say, to get “respect.” It is more effective to explore the core need of “ respect” IN the situation of when you arrive home from work. Be as specific about a circumstance as possible and avoid generalizations and “always” and “never” narratives. 

____________________________________

This is the format for discovering core needs and flexible needs for each person in a relationship or just for your own insight into yourself.

Note:

• COMPROMISE happens in the FLEXIBLE NEEDS area of the circle. NOTE that there is a much larger circle for FLEXIBLE NEEDS than the CORE NEEDS. It is important to work to get the core needs circle as clear and accurate as possible.  CORE NEEDS content will be smaller than the flexible needs.  However, it may FEEL larger when trying to trick or convince someone to be flexible with a CORE NEED. This will create attention to the smaller circle and create a gridlock. 

• Understanding and discovery happens in the core needs. Not compromise. These are non-flexible. And if they are flexible and that is ok, then they are still important to you but are not core needs but flexible.

• Sometimes you think something is a core need and you may find upon discussion it is actually flexible. Sometimes you find a flexible need might be core as you get insight. Allow continuing understanding to happen as you work with this.

 It is often best to start learning this exercise using a very focused issue such as “where do we go on vacation’ or “what movie do we want to watch this weekend together.”  You can choose “our marriage,” as a focus but know that this is a broader focus and might need to be broken down into areas of the marriage such as ‘friendship” or “parent” and "sexuality" "affection" and other areas. It is ok to choose“the marriage” as the focus, just know that if you get bogged down to bring the target focus into a more specific topic about “the marriage.” Then this can be done with many conversations instead of one big one. Marriage is actually one life-long conversation.

Once you each have completed your two lists, set a time aside to each have a turn where you listen to your partner's circles, and only ask questions for your understanding THEIR point of view. Once both have had a turn WITHOUT criticism or commentary, THEN, move into a discussion and how a negotiation and agreements can be made with the flexible/adaptive areas.  This is to be done while valuing and protecting your partners core needs: the non-flexible areas. It is often amazing how many new options open up when a couple stops trying to change their own or their partner's core needs on an issue, and move to a discussion of the flexible areas.  Happy couples do more than that. They PROTECT and ADVOCATE for their partner's core needs. 

Use the GETTING TO YES questions A a guide to help come to a negotiated agreement regarding the issue or focus at hand:

Remember the principles of the Sound Relationship House below, especially avoiding the Four Horsemen! There are more instructive articles on the CORE NEEDS EXERCISE below.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood”

"More than one thing can be true at the same time."

"There is nothing wrong with you, life it just far harder than you ever expected.

Yield to Win: Compromise like I am someone you love. The art of compromise exercise. Discuss the questions with your partner.

Manage Conflict: The Art of Compromise & Why You Need To Accept Your Partner's Core Needs

We’ve all been in the middle of an argument that we know we cannot win, understanding that our frustration has overwhelmed all sense of perspective. Spent and shattered, we would do well to remember the old saying: “It is better to bend than to break!” And this is just what Dr. Gottman’s countless research studies have shown.

When you are caught in the heat of an argument, you are in a state of crisis, which is defined as “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger” from the Greek krisis. In times where you experience crisis, what you yearn for most of all is to feel safe. If you do not feel safe (emotionally or physically), there is no way for you to reach a state of compromise with your partner.

Dr. Gottman’s further findings may not seem so intuitive: If your goal is to reach a state of compromise, you must first focus on yourself. Define your core needs in the area of your problems, do not relinquish anything that you feel is absolutely essential, and understand that you must be willing to accept influence.

His advice, based on more than four decades years of research, is the following:

Remember, you can only be influential if you accept influence. Compromise never feels perfect. Everyone gains something and everyone loses something. The important thing is feeling understood, respected, and honored in your dreams.

If you feel like this is an incredibly tall order, you are not alone. Luckily, the following exercise may be of comfort. Featured in the couples workshop that Dr. Gottman presents with his wife and collaborator, Dr. Julie Gottman, this exercise will help you and your partner to make headway into the perpetually gridlocked problems you face in your relationship. We hope that it will provide welcome relief in this critical first step towards easing the many stresses of conflict:

The Art of Compromise

Step 1: Consider an area of conflict in which you and your partner have been stuck in perpetual gridlock. Draw two ovals, one within the other. The one on the inside is yourInflexible Area, and the one on the outside is your Flexible Area.

Step 2: Think of the inside oval containing the ideas, needs, and values you absolutely cannot compromise on, and the outside oval containing the ideas, needs, and values that you feel more flexible with in this area. Make two lists.

Step 3: Discuss the following questions with your partner, in the way that feels most comfortable and natural for the two of you:

• Can you help me to understand why your “inflexible” needs or values are so important to you?

• What are your guiding feelings here?

• What feelings and goals do we have in common? How might these goals be accomplished?

• Help me to understand your flexible areas. Let’s see which ones we have in common.

• How can I help you to meet your core needs?

• What temporary compromise can we reach on this problem?

Designed as an activity for the two of you, this exercise should not be approached in the midst of a stressful discussion. It will be most helpful if undertaken in peacetime, perhaps in the evening or on a weekend. It should take you and your partner approximately thirty minutes. Remember, this activity is not a magical pill that the two of you can pop, causing your problems to disappear forever! It is the beginning of a series of what will likely prove to be long, honest, fruitful, and fulfilling discussions.

If this all still feels intimidating, don’t be discouraged. It probably means that this is important to you. And that is your greatest power – motivation to overcome these very real difficulties. In the words of Virginia Woolf, “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” The differences between us all are very real.

Remember, those of us who love someone have a real gift – having seen the unique beauty of the one we love, in all of its strengths and weaknesses, complexities and depths, we share the will to build bridges between our souls.

The first time contempt showed up in my marriage it was quiet, condescending, and it came from me.

I’d made plans with my friends and was calling my husband to wish him a good day when he asked, “When will I hear from you?”

That one question rattled every independent bone in my body.

What did he mean “When would I hear from you?” He was hearing from me now. I was going to be with my friends later. That was the whole point of me calling!

I wasn’t expecting to talk to him again until the following day.

“What do you mean we’re not talking until tomorrow?” he asked. “I thought since we aren’t seeing each other later, we’d be talking tonight.”

And that’s when I said it. “Really?”

I simply did not understand his notion of checking in, keeping in touch, or staying emotionally connected while apart. I was single for years before meeting him. I wasn’t used to staying in touch with someone and I didn’t see that as a reflection of how I felt about him.

I could be in love with him and still not need to talk to him multiple times per day.

However, that wasn’t his style. He needed to connect regularly.

Our core needs are not negotiable

Successful relationships come down to basic questions about our core needs:

• What do I need in a relationship in order to feel loved, happy, fulfilled, and secure?

• What do you need in a relationship to feel the same?

• Are you willing to meet my needs in this relationship?

• Am I willing to meet yours?

If our partners are unwilling to meet our needs, the relationship cannot thrive. If we are unwilling to meet our partner’s needs, the outcome remains the same.

It didn’t matter whether or not my husband’s need for regular connection challenged my sense of independence. It didn’t matter whether or not I believed it to be a worthwhile need. It only mattered whether or not I was willing to give him what he needed.

If his needs challenged my own, if I couldn’t give him what he needed, or if I simply didn’t want to give him what he needed, I needed to take the door.

I loved him more than I cared about having to check in.

At the end of the day, I loved him more than I was challenged by regular connection. I was willing to meet his need in order for our relationship to succeed.

How our needs get met is negotiable

When I met my husband and we were first working this stuff out, I was working a crazy job with crazy hours. I couldn’t guarantee much in terms of regular or consist contact. However, I was able to say:

I love you. You are important to me. I understand you hate feeling like my busy schedule keeps me from thinking of you. I don’t want you to feel that way. I am going to keep in touch and I need you to understand there’s no way I can promise when, for how long, or how often I’ll be able to do so.

Here is the recipe for success:

• Communicate that you understand your partner’s need and why it’s important to them

• Reiterate why tending to this is important to you

• Be clear on your own boundaries and limits in meeting the need

• Communicate what your partner can expect from you going forward

• Check back with your partner that they understand your limits and are ok with them

This is taken from the Gottman-Rapoport Conflict Blueprint for managing conflict in committed relationships.

Lasting relationships require flexibility

Working together to meet each other’s needs is a dance that can create a meaningful and lasting relationship.

Successful relationships require a solid friendship, so it helps in the beginning when needs can be met consistently to build trust and security between partners.

When it comes to meeting needs, communication and compromise are a necessity.

While my job is lower key now and less demanding in many ways than when my husband and I first confronted this issue, I still need me time away from my partner.

Communication is crucial:

Babe, I know you like keeping in touch. I am having a “just get in my car and drive” kind of day. I need to clear my head and unplug from everything and everyone. I am heading out for a while but I will call once my head is clear and let you know when I’ll be back. Sound good?

The key here is to take your partner’s needs into account while expressing yours.

If you don’t communicate this, you run the risk of your partner thinking that you stopped caring, that their needs are only a priority when it’s convenient for you, or some other unintended message.

Sometimes, your needs will conflict with one another and you’re going to have to talk about it, negotiate it, and come to a compromise together.

Relationships thrive when needs are met and falter when they’re not. That fact, quite simply, is non-negotiable.

FONDNESS and ADMIRATION Relationship Online QUIZ

Fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance. Getting through stressful times and managing conflict is much easier if you and your partner regularly show how highly you value each other. Dr. John Gottman designed the following questions to assess the current level of fondness and admiration that exists in your relationship.

• I can easily list the three things I most admire about my partner.*

  • True

  • False

• When we are apart, I often think fondly of my partner.*

  • True

  • False

• I will often find some way to tell my partner “I love you.”*

  • True

  • False

• I often touch or kiss my partner affectionately.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner really respects me.*

  • True

  • False

• I feel loved and cared for in this relationship.*

  • True

  • False

• I feel accepted and liked by my partner.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner finds me sexy and attractive.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner turns me on sexually.*

  • True

  • False

• There is fire and passion in this relationship.*

  • True

  • False

• Romance is definitely still a part of our relationship.*

  • True

  • False

• I am really proud of my partner.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner really enjoys my achievements and accomplishments.*

  • True

  • False

• I can easily tell you why I started dating my partner.*

  • True

  • False

• If I had to do it all over again, I would date the same person.*

  • True

  • False

• We rarely go to sleep without some show of love or affection.*

  • True

  • False

• When I come into a room, my partner is glad to see me.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner appreciates the things I do in this marriage.*

  • True

  • False

• My partner generally likes my personality.*

  • True

  • False

• Our sex life is generally satisfying.*

  • True

  • False

Take the quiz online HERE: https://www.gottman.com/blog/fondness-and-admiration-assessment/

THE FOUR HORSEMEN: The Antidotes

All relationships, even the most successful ones, have conflict. It is unavoidable. Fortunately, our research shows that it’s not the appearance of conflict, but rather how it’s managed that predicts the success or failure of a relationship. We say “manage” conflict rather than “resolve,” because relationship conflict is natural and has functional, positive aspects that provide opportunities for growth and understanding.

And there are problems that you just won’t solve due to natural personality differences between you and your partner, but if you can learn to manage those problems in a healthy way, then your relationship will succeed.

The first step in effectively managing conflict is to identify and counteract The Four Horsemen when they arrive in your conflict discussions. If you don’t, you risk serious problems in the future of your relationship. But, like Newton’s Third Law, for every horseman there is an antidote, and you can learn how and when to use them below.

The Antidote to Criticism: Gentle Start-Up

A complaint focuses on a specific behavior, but criticism attacks a person’s very character. The antidote for criticism is to complain without blame by using a soft or gentle start-up. Avoid saying “you,” which can indicate blame, and instead talk about your feelings using “I” statements and express what you need in a positive way.

To put it simply, think of these two things to formulate your soft start-up: What do I feel? What do I need?

Criticism: “You always talk about yourself. Why are you always so selfish?”

Antidote: “I’m feeling left out of our talk tonight and I need to vent. Can we please talk about my day?”

Notice that the antidote starts with “I feel,” leads into “I need,” and then respectfully asks to fulfill that need. There’s no blame or criticism, which prevents the discussion from escalating into an argument.

The Antidote to Contempt: Build a Culture of Appreciation and Respect

Contempt shows up in statements that come from a position of moral superiority. Some examples of contempt include sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye-rolling, sneering, mockery, and hostile humor. Contempt is destructive and defeating. It is the greatest predictor of divorce, and it must be avoided at all costs.

The antidote to contempt is to build a culture of appreciation and respect in your relationship, and there are a few ways to do that. One of our mottos is Small Things Often: if you regularly express appreciation, gratitude, affection, and respect for your partner, you’ll create a positive perspective in your relationship that acts as a buffer for negative feelings. The more positive you feel, the less likely that you’ll feel or express contempt!

Another way that we explain this is our discovery of the 5:1 “magic ratio” of positive to negative interactions that a relationship must have to succeed. If you have five or more positive interactions for every one negative interaction, then you’re making regular deposits into your emotional bank account, which keeps your relationship in the green.

Contempt: “You forgot to load the dishwasher again? Ugh. You are so incredibly lazy.” (Rolls eyes.)

Antidote: “I understand that you’ve been busy lately, but could you please remember to load the dishwasher when I work late? I’d appreciate it.”

The antidote here works so well because it expresses understanding right off the bat. This partner shows how they know that the lack of cleanliness isn’t out of laziness or malice, and so they do not make a contemptuous statement about their partner or take any position of moral superiority.

Instead, this antidote is a respectful request, and it ends with a statement of appreciation.

The Antidote to Defensiveness: Take Responsibility

Defensiveness is defined as self-protection in the form of righteous indignation or innocent victimhood in attempt to ward off a perceived attack. Many people become defensive when they are being criticized, but the problem is that being defensive never helps to solve the problem at hand.

Defensiveness is really a way of blaming your partner. You’re saying that the problem isn’t me, it’s you. As a result, the problem is not resolved and the conflict escalates further. The antidote is to accept responsibility, even if only for part of the conflict.

Defensiveness: “It’s not my fault that we’re going to be late. It’s your fault since you always get dressed at the last second.”

Antidote: “I don’t like being late, but you’re right. We don’t always have to leave so early. I can be a little more flexible.”

By taking responsibility for part of the conflict (trying to leave too early), even while asserting that they don’t like to be late, this partner prevents the conflict from escalating by admitting their role in the conflict. From here, this couple can work towards a compromise.

The Antidote to Stonewalling: Physiological Self-Soothing

Stonewalling is when someone completely withdraws from a conflict discussion and no longer responds to their partner. It usually happens when you’re feeling flooded or emotionally overwhelmed, so your reaction is to shut down, stop talking, and disengage. And when couples stonewall, they’re under a lot of emotional pressure, which increases heart rates, releases stress hormones into the bloodstream, and can even trigger a fight-or-flight response.

In one of our longitudinal research studies, we interrupted couples after fifteen minutes of an argument and told them we needed to adjust the equipment. We asked them not to talk about their issue, but just to read magazines for half an hour. When they started talking again, their heart rates were significantly lower and their interaction was more positive and productive.

What happened during that half hour? Each partner, without even knowing it, physiologically soothed themselves by reading and avoiding discussion. They calmed down, and once they felt calm, they were able to return to the discussion in a respectful and rational way.

Therefore, the antidote to stonewalling is to practice physiological self-soothing, and the first step of self-soothing is to stop the conflict discussion and call a timeout:

“Look, we’ve been through this over and over again. I’m tired of reminding you—”

“Honey, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’m feeling overwhelmed and I need to take a break. Can you give me twenty minutes and then we can talk?”

If you don’t take a break, you’ll find yourself either stonewalling and bottling up your emotions, or you’ll end up exploding at your partner, or both, and neither will get you anywhere good.

So, when you take a break, it should last at least twenty minutes because it will take that long before your body physiologically calms down. It’s crucial that during this time you avoid thoughts of righteous indignation (“I don’t have to take this anymore”) and innocent victimhood (“Why is he always picking on me?”). Spend your time doing something soothing and distracting, like listening to music, reading, or exercising. It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as it helps you to calm down.

You’ve got the skills. Use them!

Now that you know what the Four Horsemen are and how to counteract them with their proven antidotes, you’ve got the essential tools to manage conflict in a healthy way. As soon as you see criticism or contempt galloping in, remember their antidotes. Be vigilant. The more you can keep the Four Horsemen at bay, the more likely you are to have a stable and happy relationship.

FOUR HORSEMEN SELF-TEST

The Four Horsemen

Criticism Self Test

Contempt and Defensiveness

Contempt Self Test

Defensiveness Self Test

Stonewalling Self Test

Emotional Flooding

Emotional Flooding happens when one or both partners pulse rises quickly casting emotion to be stronger that reason. When you are neurologically emotionally flooded you say and do things in an extreme fashion that are often damaging to the relationship. Julie Gottman interview explains how you have to take a break at least 20 minutes and not talk about the fight. When both are calm, and it can take more than 20 minutes but that is a minimum, you can try again.

THE EMOTIONAL INTENSITY METER

Keep conversations

EFFECTIVE, HEALING and FEEL CLOSER

COMMON QUESTION: It seems like I have to get extremely mad at my mate to get their attention on things that matter to me. They get mad back at me and we talk, but it is a distant conversation. What keeps us from changing this pattern?

DON: Overwhelm.

Neither you nor your mate can learn anything new when either are overwhelmed. Neither of you are emotionally available for learning and to feel connected.

When the pulse is elevated around 100 or more beats per minute a person's brain and nervous system is what psychology now calls "flooded." 

The Relationship Research of Julie and John Gottman's book Why Marriages Succeed and Fail, calls it "diffuse physiological arousal" meaning that the part of both or your brains that warn of danger, Flight or Flight Response, has been activated and your body is in high self-defense alert. Your attention isn't in a "curious" mode but in either an attack, defensive or freeze (detached) state, meaning no one is really listening to learn anything new.  Neuro-science has confirmed why people who are so bright, capable, and smart in so many situations appear shallow and unable to learn the simplest things in a committed relationship. Why?  They are overwhelmed. They have not allowed themselves to calm down, as long as it take, before they reengage with the other person. In a calm state, reason toward what is actually happening or has happened becomes stronger than the emotion and a dialogue can happen that allows the possibility of new learning to take place.

Nobody learns when overwhelmed except how to be mean (fight), run away faster (flight), or detach and give the angry person whatever words they need to hear so they will stop being so intense (freeze--appease).

Curiosity is in the GREEN on the Emotional Intensity Meter

You succeeded in getting your partner's attention, and you also guaranteed that nothing will change. Along with all of this another thing happens that makes this even harder, details will not be remembered accurately.  And, I am sure you have ended up here because calm talking about the concern went unaddressed in a productive way. We will get to that shortly, but I want to answer your question fully first.

If you use our Emotionally Intensity Meter, you can see what happens to the brain and nervous system and therefore what a person is capable of at various levels of emotional arousal.

When a person is upset, making a very strong point over and over, or is listening and getting madder and madder, when their pulse hits around 90-100 beats per minute, they are flooded with intensity and changing the area of the brain that is function. They are now in a fight, flight or freeze mode and not open to reasoning or learning unless they calm down their pulse and emotionally become calmer.

On The EIM-Emotional Intensity Meter, that would put that person in the "red."  They are not available to speak, listen, learn, nor be reasonable.  And, if the conversation continues, the research shows it will end badly in minutes and sometimes seconds.  It takes at least 20 minutes, but can take hours and for some people a day or two, before they can calmly and therefore more reasonably reengage about the topic that triggered the overwhelm. The longer either or both people keep talking in the "red" the longer it takes for the nervous and brain to calm to "green" on the EIM, which means calm. 

Most people make the error to either keep talking in the red or not wait long enough to get into the green before re-engaging the topic.  And since the topic is usually important in some way, the upset patterns happens over and over again, until the couple stop talking about it and that creates another set of problems that become more and more complicated.

So, your strategy gets their attention, but the part of his brain you really need to talk with that can learn and make reasonable decisions, is not home.

The bottom of the Emotional Intensity Meter is Blue, that is when you are starting to detach from the conversation and the other person and thoughts about wanting the conversation end appear or other types of distancing thoughts. When in the deep blue, you are not available for an engaged closeness conversation. You may feel calm but your partner will most likely experience that as “cold” and “you don’t care about me.” So deep blue or deep red are both signs of overwhelm and the need for a time out from the conversation and away from each other physically until calm returns.The Emotional Intensity Meter can be most helpful in both stopping prolonged arguing as well as a way to gauge when ready to try and have a repair conversation.

Note: It is common to mistake “numb (overwhelm” with calmness. You will know it is calmness when you feel “like yourself” again and you can see the negative impact on your behavior toward the other person and take responsibility for it as you also see to repair and address the issue at hand with the other person.

The GOAL: Keep conversations in the GREEN, and when they aren’t, take immediate TIME OUT, no less than 20 minutes and no more than 24 hours. 

Understanding Fight, Flight, Freeze and the Fawn Trauma Response

 

Another possible response to trauma. 

 Most people have some level of awareness of PTSD, particularly as it applies to people returning from the war zones in the Middle East. PTSD was also evident in other soldiers returning from battle in the past, but there was limited recognition of the changes brought about by severe trauma in these earlier wars. 

Today, research into the brain's response to trauma has created an awareness of PTSD across a wide range of life events. This includes seeing and experiencing the horrors of war, but also for first responders, victims of crime, and people exposed to single incidents of trauma or ongoing trauma throughout their life. 

The most well-known responses to trauma are the fight, flight, or freeze responses. However, there is a fourth possible response, the so-called fawn response. Flight includes running or fleeing the situation, fight is to become aggressive, and freeze is to literally become incapable of moving or making a choice. 

The fawn response involves immediately moving to try to please a person to avoid any conflict. This is often a response developed in childhood trauma, where a parent or a significant authority figure is the abuser. Children go into a fawn-like response to attempt to avoid the abuse, which may be verbal, physical, or sexual, by being a pleaser. In other words, they preemptively attempt to appease the abuser by agreeing, answering what they know the parent wants to hear, or by ignoring their personal feelings and desires and do anything and everything to prevent the abuse. 

Over time, this fawn response becomes a pattern. Individuals carry this behavior pattern into their adult relationships, including their professional and personal interactions. 

Recognizing the Fawn Response

As the fawn response is developed early in childhood, it can be difficult for an individual to recognize it is occurring. However, there are some key signs that the fawn response is in use when:

·       You look to others for how you feel in a relationship or a situation

·       It is difficult to identify your feelings, even when you are alone

·       You often feel like you have no identity

·       You are constantly trying to please the people in your life

·       At the first sign of conflict, your first instinct is to appease the angry person

·       You ignore your own beliefs, thoughts, and truths and accept those of the people around you

·       You may experience unusual emotional responses when issues do not involve people of importance in your life. This could include emotional outbursts at strangers or sudden sadness throughout the day. 

·       You feel self-anger and guilt some or most of the time

·       Saying no to those around you is a challenge

·       You are overwhelmed at times but take on more if asked

·       You lack boundaries and are often taken advantage of in relationships

·       You are uncomfortable or threatened when asked to give an opinio

The fawn response is often not discussed in PTSD as it may be seen as simply a part of the personality of the individual. However, it goes beyond a collaborative and non-competitive personality. 

Individuals with the fawn response pattern can be targeted by those who are narcissistic or those with a desire to control and manipulate people around them. In these situations, the fawn response creates a dangerous cycle with the narcissist demanding more and more and the individual with PTSD feeling greater levels of anger, guilt, and self-reproach for giving their emotional and physical all to the partner. 

Getting Help 

Trauma, including PTSD, can be treated effectively through therapeutic interventions. Working closely with a therapist trained in the treatment of PTSD is essential to understand the cause of the trauma and to process the past to be able to move forward. 

Through therapy, individuals who use this type of response as their default way to deal with others can learn effective strategies to create and maintain boundaries, to talk about their feelings and emotions, and to learn how to interact with others without feeling the need to constantly please. 

The 4Fs: A Trauma Typology in Complex PTSD
By Pete Walker

http://pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm

This paper describes a trauma typology for differentially diagnosing and treating Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This model elaborates four basic defensive structures that develop out of our instinctive Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses to severe abandonment and trauma (heretofore referred to as the 4Fs). Variances in the childhood abuse/neglect pattern, birth order, and genetic predispositions result in individuals "choosing" and specializing in narcissistic (fight), obsessive/compulsive (flight), dissociative (freeze) or codependent (fawn) defenses. Many of my clients have reported that psychoeducation in this model has been motivational, deshaming and pragmatically helpful in guiding their recovery.

Individuals who experience "good enough parenting" in childhood arrive in adulthood with a healthy and flexible response repertoire to danger. In the face of real danger, they have appropriate access to all of their 4F choices. Easy access to the fight response insures good boundaries, healthy assertiveness and aggressive self-protectiveness if necessary. Untraumatized individuals also easily and appropriately access their flight instinct and disengage and retreat when confrontation would exacerbate their danger. They also freeze appropriately and give up and quit struggling when further activity or resistance is futile or counterproductive. And finally they also fawn in a liquid, "play-space" manner and are able to listen, help, and compromise as readily as they assert and express themselves and their needs, rights and points of view. 

Those who are repetitively traumatized in childhood however, often learn to survive by over-relying on the use of one or two of the 4F Reponses. Fixation in any one 4F response not only delimits the ability to access all the others, but also severely impairs the individual's ability to relax into an undefended state, circumscribing him in a very narrow, impoverished experience of life. Over time a habitual 4F defense also "serves" to distract the individual from the accumulating unbearable feelings of her current alienation and unresolved past trauma.

Complex PTSD as an Attachment Disorder
Polarization to a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response is not only the developing child's unconscious attempt to obviate danger, but also a strategy to purchase some illusion or modicum of attachment. All 4F types are commonly ambivalent about real intimacy because deep relating so easily triggers them into painful emotional flashbacks (see my article in The East Bay Therapist (Sept/Oct 05): "Flashback Management in the Treatment of Complex PTSD". Emotional Flashbacks are instant and sometimes prolonged regressions into the intense, overwhelming feeling states of childhood abuse and neglect: fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and/or depression. Habituated 4F defenses offer protection against further re-abandonment hurts by precluding the type of vulnerable relating that is prone to re-invoke childhood feelings of being attacked, unseen, and unappreciated.

Fight types avoid real intimacy by unconsciously alienating others with their angry and controlling demands for the unmet childhood need of unconditional love; flight types stay perpetually busy and industrious to avoid potentially triggering interactions; freeze types hide away in their rooms and reveries; and fawn types avoid emotional investment and potential disappointment by barely showing themselves - by hiding behind their helpful personas, over-listening, over-eliciting or overdoing for the other - by giving service but never risking real self-exposure and the possibility of deeper level rejection. Here then, are further descriptions of the 4F defenses with specific recommendations for treatment. All types additionally need and benefit greatly from the multidimensional treatment approach described in the article above, and in my East Bay Therapist article (Sept/Oct06): "Shrinking The Inner Critic in Complex PTSD", which describes thirteen toxic superegoic processes of perfectionism and endangerment that dominate the psyches of all 4F types in varying ways.

The Fight Type and the Narcissistic Defense
Fight types are unconsciously driven by the belief that power and control can create safety, assuage abandonment and secure love. Children who are spoiled and given insufficient limits (a uniquely painful type of abandonment) and children who are allowed to imitate the bullying of a narcissistic parent may develop a fixated fight response to being triggered. These types learn to respond to their feelings of abandonment with anger and subsequently use contempt, a toxic amalgam of narcissistic rage and disgust, to intimidate and shame others into mirroring them and into acting as extensions of themselves. The entitled fight type commonly uses others as an audience for his incessant monologizing, and may treat a "captured" freeze or fawn type as a slave or prisoner in a dominance-submission relationship. Especially devolved fight types may become sociopathic, ranging along a continuum that stretches between corrupt politician and vicious criminal. 
TX: Treatable fight types benefit from being psychoeducated about the prodigious price they pay for controlling others with intimidation. Less injured types are able to see how potential intimates become so afraid and/or resentful of them that they cannot manifest the warmth or real liking the fight type so desperately desires. I have helped a number of fight types understand the following downward spiral of power and alienation: excessive use of power triggers a fearful emotional withdrawal in the other, which makes the fight type feel even more abandoned and, in turn, more outraged and contemptuous, which then further distances the "intimate", which in turn increases their rage and disgust, which creates increasing distance and withholding of warmth, ad infinitem. Fight types need to learn to notice and renounce their habit of instantly morphing abandonment feelings into rage and disgust. As they become more conscious of their abandonment feelings, they can focus on and feel their abandonment fear and shame without transmuting it into rage or disgust - and without letting grandiose overcompensations turn it into demandingness. 

Unlike the other 4Fs, fight types assess themselves as perfect and project the inner critic's perfectionistic processes onto others, guaranteeing themselves an endless supply of justifications to rage. Fight types need to see how their condescending, moral-high-ground position alienates others and perpetuates their present time abandonment. Learning to take self-initiated timeouts at the first sign of triggering is an invaluable tool for them to acquire. Timeouts can be used to accurately redirect the lion's share of their hurt feelings into grieving and working through their original abandonment, rather than displacing it destructively onto current intimates. Furthermore, like all 4F fixations, fight types need to become more flexible and adaptable in using the other 4F responses to perceived danger, especially the polar opposite and complementary fawn response described below. They can learn the empathy response of the fawn position - imagining how it feels to be the other, and in the beginning "fake it until they make it." Without real consideration for the other, without reciprocity and dialogicality, the real intimacy they crave will remain unavailable to them.

The Flight Type and the Obsessive-Compulsive Defense
Flight types appear as if their starter button is stuck in the "on" position. They are obsessively and compulsively driven by the unconscious belief that perfection will make them safe and loveable. As children, flight types respond to their family trauma somewhere along a hyperactive continuum that stretches between the extremes of the driven "A" student and the ADHD dropout running amok. They relentlessly flee the inner pain of their abandonment and lack of attachment with the symbolic flight of constant busyness. 

When the obsessive/compulsive flight type is not doing, she is worrying and planning about doing. Flight types are prone to becoming addicted to their own adrenalization, and many recklessly and regularly pursue risky and dangerous activities to keep their adrenalin-high going. These types are also as susceptible to stimulating substance addictions, as they are to their favorite process addictions: workaholism and busyholism. Severely traumatized flight types may devolve into severe anxiety and panic disorders. 

TX: Many flight types are so busy trying to stay one step ahead of their pain that introspecting out loud in the therapy hour is the only time they find to take themselves seriously. While psychoeducation is important and essential to all the types, flight types particularly benefit from it. Nowhere is this truer than in the work of learning to deconstruct their overidentification with the perfectionistic demands of their inner critic. Gently and repetitively confronting denial and minimization about the costs of perfectionism is essential, especially with workaholics who often admit their addiction to work but secretly hold onto it as a badge of pride and superiority. Deeper work with flight types - as with all types -gradually opens them to grieving their original abandonment and all its concomitant losses. Egosyntonic crying is an unparalleled tool for shrinking the obsessive perseverations of the critic and for ameliorating the habit of compulsive rushing. As recovery progresses, flight types can acquire a "gearbox" that allows them to engage life at a variety of speeds, including neutral. Flight types also benefit from using mini-minute meditations to help them identify and deconstruct their habitual "running". I teach such clients to sit comfortably, systemically relax, breathe deeply and diaphragmatically, and ask themselves questions such as: "What is my most important priority right now?", or when more time is available: "What hurt am I running from right now? Can I open my heart to the idea and image of soothing myself in my pain?" Finally, there are numerous flight types who exhibit symptoms that may be misperceived as cyclothymic bipolar disorder; I address this issue at length in my article: "Managing Abandonment Depression in Complex PTSD". 

The Freeze Type and the Dissociative Defense 
Many freeze types unconsciously believe that people and danger are synonymous, and that safety lies in solitude. Outside of fantasy, many give up entirely on the possibility of love. The freeze response, also known as the camouflage response, often triggers the individual into hiding, isolating and eschewing human contact as much as possible. This type can be so frozen in retreat mode that it seems as if their starter button is stuck in the "off" position. It is usually the most profoundly abandoned child - "the lost child" - who is forced to "choose" and habituate to the freeze response (the most primitive of the 4Fs). Unable to successfully employ fight, flight or fawn responses, the freeze type's defenses develop around classical dissociation, which allows him to disconnect from experiencing his abandonment pain, and protects him from risky social interactions - any of which might trigger feelings of being reabandoned. Freeze types often present as ADD; they seek refuge and comfort in prolonged bouts of sleep, daydreaming, wishing and right brain-dominant activities like TV, computer and video games. They master the art of changing the internal channel whenever inner experience becomes uncomfortable. When they are especially traumatized or triggered, they may exhibit a schizoid-like detachment from ordinary reality. 

TX: There are at least three reasons why freeze types are the most difficult 4F defense to treat. First, their positive relational experiences are few if any, and they are therefore extremely reluctant to enter the relationship of therapy; moreover, those who manage to overcome this reluctance often spook easily and quickly terminate. Second, they are harder to psychoeducate about the trauma basis of their complaints because, like many fight types, they are unconscious of their fear and their torturous inner critic. Also, like the fight type, the freeze type tends to project the perfectionistic demands of the critic onto others rather than the self, and uses the imperfections of others as justification for isolation. The critic's processes of perfectionism and endangerment, extremely unconscious in freeze types, must be made conscious and deconstructed as described in detail in my aforementioned article on shrinking the inner critic. Third, even more than workaholic flight types, freeze types are in denial about the life narrowing consequences of their singular adaptation. Because the freeze response is on a continuum that ends with the collapse response (the extreme abandonment of consciousness seen in prey animals about to be killed), many appear to be able to self-medicate by releasing the internal opioids that the animal brain is programmed to release when danger is so great that death seems immanent. The opioid production of the collapse or extreme freeze response can only take the individual so far however, and these types are therefore prone to sedating substance addictions. Many self-medicating types are often drawn to marijuana and narcotics, while others may gravitate toward ever escalating regimes of anti-depressants and anxiolytics. Moreover, when they are especially unremediated and unattached, they can devolve into increasing depression and, in worst case scenarios, into the kind of mental illness described in the book, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden.

The Fawn Type and the Codependent Defense
Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries. They often begin life like the precocious children described in Alice Miler's The Drama Of The Gifted Child, who learn that a modicum of safety and attachment can be gained by becoming the helpful and compliant servants of their parents. They are usually the children of at least one narcissistic parent who uses contempt to press them into service, scaring and shaming them out of developing a healthy sense of self: an egoic locus of self-protection, self-care and self-compassion. This dynamic is explored at length in my East Bay Therapist article (Jan/Feb2003): "Codependency, Trauma and The Fawn Response" (see www.pete-walker.com). TX. Fawn types typically respond well to being psychoeducated in this model. This is especially true when the therapist persists in helping them recognize and renounce the repetition compulsion that draws them to narcissistic types who exploit them. Therapy also naturally helps them to shrink their characteristic listening defense as they are guided to widen and deepen their self-expression. I have seen numerous inveterate codependents finally progress in their assertiveness and boundary-making work, when they finally got that even the thought of expressing a preference or need triggers an emotional flashback of such intensity that they completely dissociate from their knowledge of and ability to express what they want. Role-playing assertiveness in session and attending to the stultifying inner critic processes it triggers helps the codependent build a healthy ego. This is especially true when the therapist interprets, witnesses and validates how the individual as a child was forced to put to death so much of her individual self. Grieving these losses further potentiates the developing ego.

Trauma Hybrids
There are, of course, few pure types. Most trauma survivors are hybrids of the 4F's. There are for instance, three subsets of the fawn type: the fawn-fight (the smothering-mother type) who coercively or manipulatively takes care of others, who smother loves them into conforming with her view of who they should be; the fawn-flight type who workaholically makes herself useful to others (the "model" secretary) in the vein of her favorite role model Mother Theresa; and the fawn-freeze type who numbingly surrenders herself to scapegoating or to a narcissist's need to have a target for his rageaholic releases (the "classic" domestic violence victim).Space in this article only allows for the description of two other common hybrids: the Fight/Fawn and the Flight/Freeze. 
The Fight/Fawn, perhaps the most relational hybrid and most susceptible to love addiction, combines two opposite but magnetically attracting polarities of relational style - narcissism and codependence. This defense is sometimes misdiagnosed as borderline because the individual's flashbacks trigger a panicky sense of abandonment and a desperation for love that causes her to dramatically split back and forth between fighting and clawing for love and cunningly or flatteringly groveling for it. This type is different than the fawn/fight in that the narcissistic defense is typically more in ascendancy. The fight/fawn hybrid is also distinct from a more common condition where an individual acts like a fight type in one relationship while fawning in another (the archetypal henpecked husband who is a tyrant at work), and from the many "nice" mildly codependent people who have critical masses where they will eventually get fed up and blow up about injustice and exploitation. The borderline-like fight/fawn type however may dramatically vacillate back and forth between these two styles many times in a single interaction. 

The Flight/Freeze type is the least relational and most schizoid hybrid. This type avoids his feelings and potential relationship retraumatization with an obsessive-compulsive/ dissociative "two-step" that severely narrows his existence. The flight/freeze cul-de-sac is more common among men, especially those traumatized for being vulnerable in childhood, and those who subsequently learned to seek safety in isolation or "intimacy-lite" relationships. Many non-alpha type males gravitate to the combination of flight and freeze defensiveness stereotypical of the information technology nerd - the computer addict who workaholically focuses for long periods of time and then drifts off dissociatively into computer games. Many sex addicts also combine flight and freeze in a compulsive pursuit of a sexual pseudo-intimacy. When in flight mode, they obsessively scheme to "get" sex and/or compulsively pursue and/or engage in it; when in freeze mode, they drift off into a right brain sexual fantasy world that is often fueled by an addictive use of pornography; and even during real time sexual interaction, they often engage more with their idealized fantasy partners than with their actual partner.

Self-Assessment. Readers may find it informative to self-assess their own hierarchical use of the 4F responses. They can try to determine their dominant type and hybrid, and think about what percentage of their time is spent in each type of 4F activity. Finally, all 4Fs progressively recover from the multidimensional wounding of complex ptsd as mindfulness of learned trauma dynamics increases, as the critic shrinks, as dissociation decreases, as childhood losses are effectively grieved, as the healthy ego matures into a user-friendly manager of the psyche, as the life narrative becomes more egosyntonic, as emotional vulnerability creates authentic experiences of intimacy, and as "good enough" safe attachments are attained. Furthermore, it is also important to emphasize that recovery is not an all-or-none phenomenon, but rather a gradual one marked by decreasing frequency, intensity and duration of flashbacks.

Five Languages Of Love (Gary Chapman)

Love Language #1: Words of Affirmation

a. Encouraging Words

b. Kind Words

c. Speaking to the Positive Intent of Action

Love Language #2: Receiving Gifts

a. Give meaningful things

b. Things that matter to them, even it not to you

c. Things that reflect their values, no necessarily yours

Love Language #3: Acts of Service

a. Actions that you know they would LIKE for you to do for them

b. Actions taken without resentment

c. Actions taken with gratitude

Love Language #4: Quality Time

a. Undividing attention

b. Not just being in same room

c. Regularly and often in various settings

Love Language #5: Physical Touching

a. Regular and often

b. Appropriate to the one being touched

c. Safe touch, not intrusive, leading nowhere but that moment of physical connection and not thinking of future

Rank order these choices for yourself and your partner by putting a number (1-5) beside each one. If you change your mind, don’t erase, but mark out and put the new number beside it. This is for self-discover and conversation. There are not wrong answers. After rating yourself and partner, have them do the same and then take and discover more about your past, your present, and how you would like to live your future.

Me_____________________ You____________________

#1: Words of Affirmation #1: Words of Affirmation

#2: Quality Time #2: Quality Time

#3: Receiving Gifts #3: Receiving Gifts

#4: Acts of Service #4: Acts of Service

#5: Physical Touching #5: Physical Touching

Your primary love language is your Relationship Sweet Spot, meaning if this is the number one way that if your partner expresses love to you, you will feel close to him or her. This raises your sentiment toward each other in a positive direction. 

If it isn't, even if the others are done often, you will develop a sense of distance from them, and them from you, which will eventually create an underlying resentment toward them. This lowers your relationship sentiment toward each other.

All the languages are needed in a relationship. However, the primary one(s) most greatly influence the level of positive feelings you have toward each other.