The .Plan

Funny. Now that I’m actually doing (well, learning about) family therapy, I’ve become much more attuned to patterns of unhealthy discourse between myself and the significant people in my life.

What studies pioneered by John Gottman, a psychologist and emeritus professor at the University of Washington have rather convincingly shown are the marital patterns likely to result in divorce. In his famous “love lab,” the Family Research Laboratory, Gottman observed more than 3,000 couples during three decades of research, analyzing their discourse, including arguments, and recording their physiological responses. What he concluded is that it wasn’t whether people fought 69 percent of his subjects never resolved their conflicts but how they fought. The relatively happy couples did not escalate disagreements; they broke tension with jokes and distraction and made “repairs” after arguments. When wives raised issues gently, for example, neither partner’s heart rate exceeded 95 beats per minute and the ratio of positive to negative comments during a fight was an amazing five to one.
–Laurie Abraham, “Can this Marriage be Saved?”, New York Times Magazine, August 12, 2007