Specialty
Couples Therapy Using the Gottman Method
When the same argument keeps coming back, or the two of you have gone quiet to avoid it, it can help to look at the pattern with someone outside the relationship. Vanessa Gross, LMFT, uses the Gottman Method with couples across Texas in 60-minute online sessions.
What the Gottman Method Is
The Gottman Method is a structured approach to couples therapy that focuses on habits you can observe and change: how partners raise a problem, respond to complaints, calm down, and stay connected on ordinary days. It gives you a shared vocabulary for what goes wrong, which makes hard topics easier to discuss without blame.
The aim is to strengthen the friendship between you, make conflict less damaging, and help each of you understand what the other wants and fears underneath a disagreement.
The Four Horsemen That Make Conflict Worse
The method names four habits, nicknamed the Four Horsemen, that make arguments more damaging and harder to recover from. Criticism turns a complaint into an attack on character ("You never think about anyone else"). Contempt shows up as eye-rolling, mockery or sarcasm. Defensiveness answers a concern with excuses or a counter-complaint, and stonewalling means shutting down or going silent while your partner is still talking.
Each one has a counterpart that you can practice:
- Instead of criticism, start with your own feeling and a specific request
- Instead of contempt, make a habit of noticing and saying what you appreciate
- Instead of defensiveness, take responsibility for even a small part of the problem
- Instead of stonewalling, say you need a break and take time to calm down
Bids for Connection and Repair Attempts
Much of the Gottman Method looks at small, everyday moments. A bid for connection is any attempt to get your partner's attention or warmth, such as "Look at this," a sigh at the end of the day, or a hand on the shoulder. Partners can turn toward a bid by responding, turn away by missing it, or turn against it with irritation.
A repair attempt is anything that lowers the tension during a disagreement: a joke, "Can I start over?" or reaching for your partner's hand. The method pays as much attention to how a couple repairs as to what they argue about. In sessions, you look at which bids and repairs land between the two of you, and which ones get missed.
What Flooding Is and Why Breaks Help
Flooding is the Gottman term for what happens when an argument sets off your body's alarm. Your heart races, your face gets hot, and it becomes very hard to listen or think clearly. Once one partner is flooded, the conversation tends to go downhill, however good everyone's intentions are.
The Gottman approach is to notice the signs, agree on a way to call a break, and spend at least 20 minutes doing something calming instead of replaying the argument. Then you come back and finish the conversation. Practicing this with Vanessa first makes it easier to use at home.
Solvable Problems and Perpetual Problems
The Gottman Method separates two kinds of conflict. Solvable problems have a workable answer, such as how to split chores or where to spend a holiday. Perpetual problems come from lasting differences in personality or values, like one partner wanting firm plans while the other likes to keep things open, and they return in new forms over the years.
With a perpetual problem, the goal is to keep talking about the difference without falling into gridlock, where every conversation becomes the same painful standoff. That means understanding what the difference means to each of you, making room for some compromise, and being able to discuss it with less hurt and, at times, some humor.
How Online Couples Sessions Work
Couples sessions last 60 minutes, with both partners joining the same secure video call, and each of you needs to be physically in Texas at the time of the session. A session often starts with something recent, such as a tense exchange about the dishes or a week of feeling far apart.
From there, Vanessa helps you slow it down: where a horseman showed up, which bids got missed, and when one of you started to feel flooded. The goal is to understand the pattern well enough to catch it yourselves between sessions. If therapy by video is new to you, see how online therapy works.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
That session needs to wait until you are both back in Texas. Because Vanessa is licensed in Texas and sessions are for people located there, neither partner can join from another state, even for one session. Cancellations need 24 hours' notice to avoid a late-cancellation fee, so it helps to compare travel calendars when you book.
Hesitation is common, and it helps to say so openly. The free 15-minute phone consultation is a chance to ask how sessions work before either of you commits to anything. If your partner decides not to join, individual therapy can still help you look at your side of the pattern; see therapy for relationship struggles.
Her focus is the relationship and the patterns between you, rather than deciding who is right. She will still name a pattern when she sees it, whichever partner it comes from, including any of the Four Horsemen. Expect both of you to hear something you would rather not, and to get support in changing it.
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A gentler next step
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