See the CTI blog on emotionally abusive relationships for tactics often used by those with personality disorders. (Exceptions exist, of course, when defensiveness arises not from the couple’s interaction, but from outside stressors or from personal wounds or disorders in one or both partners. Gottman’s identified destructive patterns are less likely to manifest if both partners are feeling protected by the other.
If we are actively striving to protect our partner (their feelings, their point of view, what is important to them, wounds from their past, their attachment needs, other needs, etc.) and our partner is doing the same for us, then neither party needs to get self-defensive. The opposite of self-protection, therefore-it’s antidote-is other-protection… defense of each other. Therefore, what is needed is for partners to protect each other, making self-protection unnecessary. The ruinous behaviors are either us being self-protective or causing our partner to be self-protective. This is because all of the destructive patterns have at their core some aspect of self-defensiveness. The common denominator underlying all of the antidotes is protection. These terms will be clarified below, but before delving into each toxin, I want to identify the universal antidote for them all. The six destructive patterns discovered by The Gottman Institute (TGI) are: He has thus given couples an exit ramp from the contentious road they were traveling, and onto a smoother highway toward a harmonious, mutually satisfying relationship. Gottman’s research-identified antidotes to the toxins helps couples know not only what needs to change, but what exactly to do, instead. Identifying and naming these destructive patterns helps couples know what to change. John Gottman’s four decades of research on couples has given us language for the typical patterns that divide couples.
0 kommentar(er)
