By Dr. Sue
Johnson
Marriage may be on the rise but
that doesn’t mean we’re getting any better at relationships. Now research shows
that love may be less of a mystery, a frenzy of sex and emotion and instead the
result of behavior that we can apply logic to.
As a clinical psychologist and
researcher for over 25 years, it’s become clear that two things make or break
relationships: the ability to respond emotionally and offer support when it’s
needed.
Numerous studies, including my own research on how couples successfully repair
their love relationships, confirm that the ability to respond to a lover’s
emotional signals builds secure and lasting bonds. These studies are part of
the revolutionary new science that has, in the last 15 years, outlined the laws
and logic of love. This science has progressed to the point where we cannot
only help a couple move into satisfaction, but build the kind of secure
connection where simply holding a partner’s hand calms your brain and lessens
pain, even in the face of the threat of electric shock.
When logic and science show us the
way, we can shape and heal romantic bonds. Using an intervention called
emotionally focused therapy (EFT), we’ve found that 70 to 73% of couples can
completely repair their relationship and 86% can make significant and lasting
improvements to their bond. During EFT, we show couples how the habitual way
they send out signals to their partner triggers wired-in threat responses, so
that neither partner feels safe enough to reach for the other. We then help
them identify their emotional needs for belonging and support, and communicate
them in a way that pulls their partner close.
A typical couple I see are like Paul and Amy. Paul is a smart, focused
man in his mid-forties who has made a fortune with his cutting edge computer
company. He walks into my office with his wife, Amy, who has announced that,
after 10 years and two kids, she is about to leave him. He tells me, “I can
figure anything out, but I just don’t get why she is so angry with me. I do all
the tasks and solve the problems around the house. But I never get it right.
She is never happy with me. It’s like I have no tools—my head can’t figure this
one out.”
I tell him. “You know how to focus and pay attention; you know how to put
things together in a way that makes sense. It is just a question of changing
the program a little.” He smiles. Amy
looks at me, doubt all over her face. But four months later, she too is
smiling. What has Paul learned?
He learned that love is an
exquisitely logical survival code designed to keep special others we can depend
on close to us and that his intellectual
explanations and emotional distancing were danger cues for his lonely wife.
He learned to let his wife know when her criticism hurt rather than exiting
into logic and distance. Reading the research of Nancy Eisenberger from UCLA
helped him grasp how his brain coded rejection from his wife as a threat to
survival, responding in the exact same way as to physical pain, cueing his
freeze and flee response.
He discovered how to tune into the
emotional channel, share his fears of rejection and explicitly ask for the
reassurance he needed, and encourage his wife to do that same. We call this a
Hold Me Tight conversation and across nine studies it consistently predicted
successful relationship repair.
Paul had the usual reservations about
asking for caring. He, like the rest of us had been taught that needing loving
connection was somehow a weakness or a sign of immaturity. Research shows that
those of us who can effectively turn to others for support are the most
confident, resistant to stress, most able to risk, explore and reach career
goals, and also the ones who have the most positive sense of self. The new research on mirror neurons fascinated
him and persuaded him that it was important to turn towards and look directly
into Amy’s face to trigger these neurons in his brain and allow him to directly
feel in his body the emotions he saw in her face. This way he could grasp her
emotional reality, read her intentions, and move in harmony with her.
He told Amy that he shut down to deal
with his sense of bewilderment about how to respond to her and that he needed
her support. “And I get that I have to stay in the emotional channel and let
you know I am there for you,” he began. “That is what matters in love. I don’t
always have to have the answer or solve the problem. Just really being there
and helping each other with our emotions is the solution.”
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