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Title: The Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide for Building Better Connections with Family, Friends, and Lovers by John M. Gottman, Joan Declaire, John Gottman ISBN: 0-609-60809-6 Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY) Pub. Date: 22 May, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Clear guidelines!
Comment: Gottman, the leading researcher in the area of marriage and other intimate relationships, provides in this latest book a simple, yet very effective 5-step-model of enhancing and deepening your personal relationships.
This program builds upon the results of several longitudinal studies. This means, the advice offered is based not on personal opinion (like so many other authors do), but on solid research findings. Gottman starts by introducing the basic element of human relationships, the bid. A bid is any single expression that says "I want to feel connected to you". Failed bid processes are the root cause of many problems in human relationships.
The 5 step Gottman offers are:
1) Look at your bids for connection: here the reader learns to distinguish among turning-towards, turning-away and turning-against responses and their effects
2) Discover your brain's emotional commmand system: this chapter is especially illuminating because it deals with 7 emotional systems with their distinct linkages to behaviors and feelings. It demonstrates how these systems can cause problems in bidding processes
3) Examine your emotional heritage: in my opinion, this is the best part of the book. Several exercises reveal your family's way of dealing with emotions such as pride, anger, fear, and accomplishments. You beome aware of your personal way of relating to others and how they relate to your earlier experiences. Another part is devoted to your enduring emotional vulnerabilities.
4) Sharpen your emotional skills: various exercises are aimed at improving your emotional intelligence.
5) Create shared meaning: another very important part, not only for marriages. It encourages the reader to explore his and the other's personal dreams and visions. It also urges to create a deeper level of connecting by the use of rituals.
By and large, this book is an excellent example of science applied to real life. Everyone interested in improving his personal relationships should read this book!
Rating: 5
Summary: Does It Again
Comment: This is another outstanding book by Dr. Gottman and his research team. Instead of an author giving his own personal opinions of what he thinks make good marriages, Dr. Gottman actually observes hundreds and finds what they have in common. Two major bits he observed in happy couples were paying attention to each other and elements of romance. From all the very happy couples I know, I would agree.
I'd recommend looking at The Romantic's Guide for ideas on easy ways to keep being romantic.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb manual for mindful relating with authentic E.Q.
Comment: I feel privileged to pick this book to mark my 100th review for Amazon.com. I've been recommending to numerous groups Gottman and co-authors' books, esp. the less technical ones: The Heart of Parenting (which is in Chinese also), Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.
With almost 3 decades of research of actual interactions, Gottman and teams' books are always filled with vivid and enlightening examples. The touching personal stories, elucidating questionnaires, exercises and long lists of "what to do" are all helpful and practical. They hold up multi-dimensioanl mirrors to explorations. Without having to do any formal meditation, you can grow in awareness and mindfulness.
Given the plethora of popularization, it might sound trite to relate this book to E.Q. (Emotional Intelligence). But it IS one of the best books for developing mindful emotional connections. That's why I need to qualify it with "authentic E.Q.". Please note in particular "Emotional Intelligence Versus Detachment and Denial" (pp. 158-160).
Please read the informative Book Description and the review by Mitchell (one of my "favorite people"). In Step One, breaking down communication to the basic unit of exchange, "bidding", and responding (turning toward, away or against), helps one to learn HOW to behave differently instead of remaining at lofty levels of unfruitful talk about love and consideration... (This reminds one of Eric Berne's "stroking" in Transactional Analysis, most popular in the 60s & '70s. "Stroking" however, connotes more manipulation.)
The authors have done a good service to make Jaak Panksepp's pioneering studies in Affective Neuroscience accessible to readers in Step Two: Discover Your Brain's Emotional Command Systems. (It would be interesting to see if there are any correlations with the Enneagram systems, which study nine-types of personality.)
Step Three: Examine Emotional Heritage, gives a good illustration of the value of the "emotion-coaching philosophy". The other books that I've mentioned give many more examples.
Step Four: Sharpen Your Emotional Communication Skills, gives interesting coverage to sharpen sensory acuity and listening skills (much stressed in NLP, Neuro-linguistic Programming). [I personally tend to differ from the author's sweeping dismissal of "the pseudoscience of physiognomy", p. 178. I still see some value of a more scientific approach in verifying the significance of permanent features and also fleeting changes in physiognomy. Cf. My several reviews of "face-reading".]
Step Five: Find Shared Meaning, brings us beyond behaviorism and studies truly human interactions and rituals.
Detailed applications of these 5 steps are given to different relationships: marital, parental, friendship, sibling, coworker. The book is ideal for personal and shared reflections, retreats, marriage encounters and workshops. I have already been actively promoting it and sincerely hope that it will reach the best-seller list. Gottman and team well-deserve the reputation and publicity they receive. Readers will not be disappointed. Relationships not needing cure will also be much enriched. [From a Christian viewpoint, it is in relationships that we can reflect the communion and unity in diversity of the Trinity, that we continue to become the image of God, and embody the presence of Christ today. Salvador Dali's Last Supper depicted a Risen Christ without any face. It is the quality of our relationships that will show forth the face of God.]
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Title: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work : A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John M. Gottman, Nan Silver ISBN: 0609805797 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 16 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: WHY MARRIAGES SUCCEED OR FAIL: AND HOW YOU CAN MAKE YOURS LAST by John Gottman ISBN: 0684802414 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships by John, Ph.D. Gottman, Joan Declaire ISBN: 0609809539 Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA) Pub. Date: 25 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman ISBN: 0684838656 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 12 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: A Couple's Guide to Communication by John Mordechai Gottman ISBN: 0878221271 Publisher: Research Press (IL) Pub. Date: 01 June, 1979 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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