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The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy (Norton Professional Books) |  | Author: John M. Gottman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $49.00
Buy New: $31.95
as of 3/21/2010 17:47 CDT details
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 21010
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 480
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0393702820
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89156
EAN: 9780393702828
ASIN: 0393702820
Publication Date: August 17, 1999
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Availability: Usually ships in 9 to 14 days
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Product Description
A complete marital therapy program based on the author's much heralded research on marital success and failure. Research on why some couples divorce and others experience sustained bliss has led to a theory, including the fact that successful couples have an abundance of good feelings toward one another and are able to deal with inevitable conflicts without becoming hostile. This book offers a theoretically based systematic approach to assessing and treating dysfunctional marriages. It is packed with specific interventions and exercises.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Helpful for professional counselors March 10, 2009
lady counselor (Chesapeake, VA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been doing counseling for 30 years, and found this book very helpful in providing an additional perspective, scientifically based, to make couples' counsleing more effective. I have put several of the exercises into my work with clients.
 research based couple's therapy October 29, 2008
L. Wolowitz
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am a clinical psychologist who bought this book to update my skills for working with couples. The heart of the book is that Gottman believes that the "old" way of working on empathic listening between couple's should not be the goal of therapy. He says that it is too hard for couples to listen to each other when they are being attacked and criticized. It put's them on the defensive. I was intrigued by this hypothesis, but it is still possible to work on listening as non-defensively as possible. However, his point is well taken that we also need to build intimacy and connection as a primary goal of couple's work. I also liked his notion that some things will not change in any relationship. These points of bad fit or mis-match can be transmuted into a situation where couple's have more acceptance and humor around issues that are not likely to change. I still think there is no substitute for evaluating each couple on an individual basis. Any research based or technique driven prescription is likely to fall short of a skilled therapist tailoring the work to that individual couple. Overall, a helpful book - but has limitations!
Recommended reading for all relationships July 24, 2008
E. Richards (Alone with my thoughts)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Dr Gottman is a noted researcher in the field of interpersonal relationships. You can read the summary for the book in the description. I was never one of those readers who thinks Sister Mary Amazon will give me a gold star on my report if I bore you with 500 lines of basically repeating the publisher's summary.
The book is purportedly about marriage. I can tell you as an unmarried person that this information can apply to all relationships. I use many of the principles described in the book in my day to day relationships with friends, merchants, coworkers and other people I don't have a joint checking account with.
Its recommended reading between relationships. You can learn why things went south, for example. It also is a good metric for gauging new people. If they behave in a way that looks like you are going to be heading towards a troubled relationship, you can either bail or try to guide things in the right way.
Gottman's "The Marriage Clinic" April 10, 2008
B. Wheeler (Utah)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Excellent book on the importance of marriage and how to strengthen marriage. However, it is written more towards therapists, but if you are interested in how to strengthen marriage, this is an excellent resource
Exceptional! January 12, 2008
Dr. B (Bethesda, MD United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
At last there is an answer to the question I've been asking since beginning my studies in psychology--"Isn't there anything ELSE?" There are many schools of thought that reign in fiefdoms of psychology, including systems theory, behaviorism, Imago, and psychodynamic to name a few. Each is dogmatic, and when tested across research studies, all can benefit patients (despite zealous claims to the contrary by the priesthoods in each camp). However, until I read The Marriage Clinic, I was not aware that our field has shown such poor results in the area of marital therapy. While individual psychotherapy tends to work, Gottman sites research to show that marital therapy does not create lasting change. This is serious.
Our current state of the art in marital and family therapy tends include unsatisfying, unnatural, and even ridiculous, techniques for clinicians to use with people facing the problem of how to improve their marriage. Thank goodness for people like Gottman, who actually collect data to inform decisions, and use common sense and humanity to understand and apply those findings. I see Gottman as our field's greatest living visionary, whose research and relationship building techniques will hopefully spread to parent-child relationships and IO psychology as well.
As to this book specifically, don't get it unless you are a clinician. If you are looking to help your own marriage, I suggest The Seven Principals of Making Marriage Work, which is very user friendly. The Marriage Clinic is quite technical in parts, and can be dense, however it is a very fun read. Gottman's personality and humor come through loud and clear. I found myself laughing out loud at times. I confess I enjoy how he exposes the senselessness of so much of the techniques we currently utilize, and backs it up with meticulous research. This book begins with a solid lit review, a discussion of Gottman's basic ideology and rationale, and then goes into the nuts and bolts of how to apply his ideas.
Even if you are not a marital therapist, it will change the way you look at relationships. He teaches a new vocabulary for describing what you are observing in relationships that I find exceptionally helpful. I would recommend this to anyone conducting psychotherapy, as it will improve your ability to make inferences about your patient's relationships. I also enjoyed the case vignettes very much. If you like Gottman, I highly recommend his books on parenting as well.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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