Most couples do not need to argue less. They need the argument to go differently.
The Gottman Method is the framework I lean on hardest with couples. It comes out of watching real relationships rather than theorizing about them, and it is unusually practical about the first three minutes of a hard conversation.
A method built by watching couples, not by guessing about them.
Most couples approaches begin with a theory of relationships and work outward. This one began the other way around: decades of observational research recording how partners actually spoke to each other, then asking what separated the couples who stayed close from the ones who slowly stopped being able to talk.
What came out of that is less romantic and more useful than most people expect. It turns out a great deal rides on small mechanics: how a complaint is opened, whether a partner turns toward a passing comment, whether either person can reach across in the middle of an argument and have that reach taken.
I am trained in this method and I use it with nearly every couple I see. It is especially load-bearing when trust has been broken, because the couples in that position have to have conversations far harder than the ones they were already failing to have.
A note on what it does not do: it will not tell you whether to stay, and it does not promise you an outcome. It gives two people a way of talking that is worth having either way.
Five things we will end up working on.
Not in order, and rarely one at a time. Step through them to see what each involves.
Minute one
How the conversation opens decides most of it
The research is unsparing here: how a difficult conversation starts predicts a great deal about how it ends. So we look at your actual openings, the sigh, the 'you always', the question that is not really a question, and we rebuild them into something that states the need without opening with a charge.
What it is like to sit on the couch while I do this.
The method is well documented. What is harder to find out in advance is how a particular therapist runs it, so here is exactly what I do.
- What I do
I interrupt
When a conversation starts doing damage I stop it, rather than letting it run to its usual ending in front of me.
- What I do
I make you say it to each other
A lot of the hour is the two of you talking directly while I coach, rather than each of you reporting to me.
- What I do
I track the body, not just the words
When one of you floods, heart racing, mind gone blank, the conversation is over whether or not it stops.
- What I do
I give you the week, not the hour
Each session ends with one small, concrete thing to run at home, usually a specific conversation with a specific opening.
Usually asked by whichever of you booked the consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
One of you can make the call
A free 15-minute phone consultation. It commits the other person to nothing, and it is a reasonable first step even if you are undecided.