WE EXPAND ON THE GOTTMAN METHOD

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Psychology of Romance podcast, where doctor Carlos
discusses the latest research and insight on relationships. Now here's

(00:28):
your host, Doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
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I will teach you how to understand your dog's body language,
to code their barks and wines so all behavioral and

(01:00):
strengthen you're pond like never before. With Dog Psychology, you'll
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or paperback on Amazon. Today we're going to be talking

(01:27):
about the popular Gutman method and the Four Horsemen. It
was backed by over four decades of studying thousands of
partnerships and the approach pinpoint in destructive patterns known as
the four Horsemen that he rode love, offering couples tools
to replace them with healthy communications. So let's look at these.
The four horsemen include criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. They're

(01:48):
toxic behaviors that can predict the relationship breakdown. Criticism attacks
a partner's character, like saying you're so selfish instead of
addressing a specific issue. Contempt, the most corrosive, involves mockery
or sarcism, signaling superiority, often with an eye roll or
a sneer. Defensiveness deflects. Blame is when one partner snaps

(02:08):
it's not my fault, rather than owning their role. And finally, stonewalling,
which shuts down communication entirely, with one partner withdrawing into silence,
leaving the other stranded. The gotment method interviewers by teaching
couples to recognize and replace these patterns through structured exercises.
The partners will learn antidotes, general's gentle startups instead of criticism,

(02:30):
appreciation over contempt, accountability in place of defensiveness by fostering
empathy and humor. The method helps partners navigate seventy percent
of conflicts that are perpetual, turning battles into opportunities for connection.
What I want to look at briefly is what are
these four horsemen criticism? Why would you criticize somebody? You'reself? Selfish?
This is a defense mechanism and a lot of times

(02:52):
a projection. There's a feeling of injustice and the loss
of control that can drive anger or hate. We'll say
anger here, and this is a sense of helplessness. Something's
out of our control, and what we'll do is will
project our anger and attack somebody else and probably accuse
them of something that sometimes we feel ourselves about ourselves.
It doesn't mean necessarily that we're always wrong, but a

(03:15):
lot of times you're going to have to step back.
Remember the acronym I use before in DBT stop stop,
take a step back, observe your feelings, your body, your emotions,
what you're thinking, and then process it. Are you being
realistic here? So when you criticize, again, it's a defense mechanism.
So if somebody's criticizing you, stop for a second when

(03:37):
they're criticizing you, why and assess it. Are you hyper
sensitive to criticism? Are you sensitive because you grew up
with parents who are highly critical? Or is your partner
going through something are they angry about something? Two is
contempt the most corrosive, which again involves mockery or sarcasm.
This is signaling as feeling a superiority, but in reality

(03:59):
it's the other feels inferior. They feel not good enough.
So what they end up doing is overcompensating here, and
they want to make sure that the other person feels it. Again,
the person giving out the contempt has got something going
on inside of them, so the other partner should not
take it personally, per se and actually look at this

(04:19):
and say, wait a minute, what's going on in my
partner that's causing them to issue contempt. For both of you,
reducing criticism and contempt and analyzing why you're doing it.
What's it defending you from is an important question to ask.
The third thing is defensiveness, so you're defaulting the blame again.
This is a person who's hypersensitive to criticism. They don't

(04:40):
want to hear that they're doing something wrong. This immediately
drops into the category of not good enough and feeling
worthless or feeling inadequate, and this makes them vulnerable. So
what they'll do they'll become defensiveness and not admit to responsibility. Finally,
in stonewalling, this means their coping mechanisms usually are overwhelmed.

(05:00):
They don't can't tackle it. They can't handle the conflict.
Probably a lot of conflict in their own home growing up,
and they usually ran away or hitt in a room
or hit somewhere, And now as adults they'll do the
same thing. When the conflict gets too intense, they're out
of there. Now. This is different from cooling off in
the middle of an argument. If you can actually say,
you know what, I'm a little hot headed right now,
I'm not sure if I'm thinking clearly, give me a

(05:22):
few minutes and look the other partner. You need to
assess it. If you notice that your partner is getting
emotionally charged up, and if they take a few minutes
to themselves actually come back better, then you have to
start getting used to the idea of letting them cool down,
because they're trying to emotionally regulate, and if you can
let them practice that, it'll get better over time. One

(05:43):
of the ways to measure this is look at the frequency, intensity,
and time of a behavior. Does a reducing frequency, does
it reduce in intensity, and does it reduce in duration
or time? If it does, the person is getting better.
So when you're in these arguments, look to see are
the arguments less frequent? Are they less intense? Are they

(06:04):
lasting not as long? Is the anger not as frequent
or intense or lasting as long? If those things are
happening on the decline, you're getting better. So these are
some of the things you can incorporate with the Gobman
method again, but always look at the other person and yourself.
When you feel these feelings and you're leading to criticism
or contempt, why are you doing it and why is
the other person doing it? It's usually a defense mechanism,

(06:26):
protecting you from something