Are you a DIYer? Do you like to repair things yourself? Is your attitude, “Just give me the tools and show me how to do it, and I will”? While repairing your relationship may not be the same as doing a home repair project, our goal with Gottman Method Couples Therapy is to give you the tools to repair your relationship yourself. If we have done it right, you will say in the end, “Is that all there is to it? We can do this ourselves!” That is my goal as a Certified Gottman Therapist: for you to take the tools and skills that I will give you and do them yourselves.
We can do this because Gottman Method Couples Therapy is based on what works and what doesn’t work in relationships. For over 40 years, Dr. John Gottman has observed thousands of couples and what he calls the “Masters” and “Disasters” of Relationship. Gottman Method Couples Therapy has been “plagiarized” from them: from the “Masters” we have learned what relatively happy and stable couples do to build, maintain, and repair their relationship and from the “Disasters” we have learned what leads to estrangement, loneliness, isolation, and, ultimately, dissolution.
We have also learned specific tools and skills to build friendship, manage conflict, and create shared meaning. In the area of friendship, we have tools and skills to help you Build Love Maps, Share Fondness and Admiration, and Turn Towards Each Other. In the area of managing conflict, we have tools and skills to help you process the aftermath of regrettable incidents, make the repair, resolve your solvable problems, move from gridlock to dialogue on perpetual problems, and move towards compromise. In the area of creating shared meaning, we have tools and skills to help you discover and make your life dreams come true and create shared meaning around your roles, goals, rituals, and values. We even have tools to help you build trust and commitment in your relationship.
This works because Gottman Method Couples Therapy focuses on the two of you, not the therapist. Our goal is not to impress you with our brilliance and make you depend on us, but to make your next conversation or interaction better than the last. That is, more like that of a happy and stable couple and less like that of a couple headed down the path towards unhappiness and dissolution.
You are considering couples therapy because you want to repair or improve some aspect(s) of your relationship. With Gottman Method Couples Therapy, we can help you change the way that you walk through life together as friends, the way that you manage conflict in your relationship, and how you create shared meaning. Let us give you the tools so that you can do it yourselves!