The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy (Norton Professional Books (Hardcover))

At last there is an answer to the question I've been asking since beginning my studies in psychology--"Isn't there anything ELSE?" There are many schools of thought that reign in fiefdoms of psychology, including systems theory, behaviorism, Imago, and psychodynamic to name a few. Each is dogmatic, and when tested across research studies, all can benefit patients (despite zealous claims to the contrary by the priesthoods in each camp). However, until I read The Marriage Clinic, I was not aware that our field has shown such poor results in the area of marital therapy. While individual psychotherapy tends to work, Gottman sites research to show that marital therapy does not create lasting change. This is serious.Our current state of the art in marital and family therapy tends include unsatisfying, unnatural, and even ridiculous, techniques for clinicians to use with people facing the problem of how to improve their marriage. Thank goodness for people like Gottman, who actually collect data to inform decisions, and use common sense and humanity to understand and apply those findings. I see Gottman as our field's greatest living visionary, whose research and relationship building techniques will hopefully spread to parent-child relationships and IO psychology as well.As to this book specifically, don't get it unless you are a clinician. If you are looking to help your own marriage, I suggest The Seven Principals of Making Marriage Work, which is very user friendly. The Marriage Clinic is quite technical in parts, and can be dense, however it is a very fun read. Gottman's personality and humor come through loud and clear. I found myself laughing out loud at times. I confess I enjoy how he exposes the senselessness of so much of the techniques we currently utilize, and backs it up with meticulous research. This book begins with a solid lit review, a discussion of Gottman's basic ideology and rationale, and then goes into the nuts and bolts of how to apply his ideas.Even if you are not a marital therapist, it will change the way you look at relationships. He teaches a new vocabulary for describing what you are observing in relationships that I find exceptionally helpful. I would recommend this to anyone conducting psychotherapy, as it will improve your ability to make inferences about your patient's relationships. I also enjoyed the case vignettes very much. If you like Gottman, I highly recommend his books on parenting as well.

I am a clinical psychologist who bought this book to update my skills for working with couples. The heart of the book is that Gottman believes that the "old" way of working on empathic listening between couple's should not be the goal of therapy. He says that it is too hard for couples to listen to each other when they are being attacked and criticized. It put's them on the defensive. I was intrigued by this hypothesis, but it is still possible to work on listening as non-defensively as possible. However, his point is well taken that we also need to build intimacy and connection as a primary goal of couple's work. I also liked his notion that some things will not change in any relationship. These points of bad fit or mis-match can be transmuted into a situation where couple's have more acceptance and humor around issues that are not likely to change. I still think there is no substitute for evaluating each couple on an individual basis. Any research based or technique driven prescription is likely to fall short of a skilled therapist tailoring the work to that individual couple. Overall, a helpful book - but has limitations!

What an amazing book. We use the concepts in our marriage counseling to great effect. Highly recommended and thoroughly researched. Just buy it

Contains all the basics from Gottman. Went to a two-day seminar and paid a significant amount of money to hear the Gottmans live only to discover that the presentation was just a verbal presentation of the content of the book. Could have saved a lot of money had I known. The content is useful but it's a rather boring read. Better read in chunks.

I wasn't sure about this book when I first started reading it. The logistics and mathmatical numbers were boring. Sometimes it didn't make sense to me, but once I got past those chapters I truly enjoyed reading the book. This book is actually required for my MFT college course. I really like the exercises in the book and Gottman's philosophy. One day I plan on using some of his tools and exercises into my practice of counseling couples.

Amazing product. I highly recommend buying it if you’re in the market for it... I love mine...

I am a licensed psychotherapist who works with couples--married and unmarried, gay and straight--and find Gottman's intake and treatment methods apply across the board. I used this book in my post-grad training and daily in private practice. While he has books for laypeople (and they are very good), this is the go-to book for professionals in the field.

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...and truly, it is THE book that every marriage counselor must have read. What a coincidence that "Gottman" means "Man of God" in German. Funny but true! So Mr. Man of God wrote the Bible of marital therapy.Great, helpful, a must read!

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