Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Hold Me Tight

On my brother's recommendation, I bought Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson. It's relationship self-help book of sorts, centered around Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT.

So far, I'm really enjoying it, and want to share, so here's a quote:

The message of EFT is simple: Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, making grand romantic gestures, or experimenting with new sexual positions. Instead, recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection... EFT focuses on creating and strengthening this emotional bond between partners by identifying and transforming the key moments that foster an adult loving relationship: being open, attuned, and responsive to each other.

(you should be impressed that I typed that paragraph while looking at the book, fairly quickly, with only two (haha, I just found two more, guess I'm not as good as I thought...) typos.)

If you want to borrow the book after I'm done with it, let me know. The book says that 70-75% of couples who go through EFT are happy in their relationships, even with couples who previously were high risk for divorce.

My take is if it can do that much for unhappy couples, what can it do for couples who are already happy? I'll let you know.

2 comments:

George said...

We enjoyed listening to it on the way back from a CA trip recently and I think she is good. However, I had to give up listening to a Dave Robicheaux (James Lee Burke) murder mystery that probably would have benefited my psyche more traveling across Nevada for 10 hours.

adamf said...

Nat and I have now had 5 sessions of EFT and we are loving it.