Hold Me Tight: Your Guide to the Most Successful Approach to Building Loving Relationships

by Dr Sue Johnson

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.

being open, attuned, and responsive to each other.

really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, your risk is even greater.”

We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life.

look at the four behaviors that Bowlby and she believed were basic to attachment: that we monitor and maintain emotional and physical closeness with our beloved; that we reach out for this person when we are unsure, upset, or feeling down; that we miss this person when we are apart; and that we count on this person to be there for us when we go out into the world and explore.

A researcher invites a mother and child into an unfamiliar room. After a few minutes, the mother leaves the child alone with the researcher, who tries to offer comfort if needed. Three minutes later, the mother comes back. The separation and reunion are repeated once more. The majority of children are upset when their mothers walk out; they rock themselves, cry, throw toys. But some prove more emotionally resilient. They calm themselves quickly and effectively, reconnect easily with their mothers on their return, and rapidly resume playing while checking to make sure that their moms are still around. They seem confident that their mothers will be there if needed.

When they felt secure with their lover, they could reach out and connect easily; when they felt insecure, they either became anxious, angry, and controlling, or they avoided contact altogether and stayed distant. Just what Bowlby and Ainsworth had found with mothers and children.

When we feel safely linked to our partners, we more easily roll with the hurts they inevitably inflict, and we are less likely to be aggressively hostile when we get mad at them.

Need to make partner feel sage and secure that they will not be judged and they will not be yelled at

more we can reach out to our partners, the more separate and independent we can be.

Simply holding the hand of a loving partner can affect us profoundly, literally calming jittery neurons in the brain.

when we are close to, hold, or make love with our partners, we are flooded with the “cuddle hormones” oxytocin and vasopressin. These hormones seem to turn on “reward” centers in the brain, flooding us with calm and happiness chemicals like dopamine, and turning off stress hormones like cortisol.

Love is not the icing on the cake of life. It is a basic primary need, like oxygen or water.

We all experience some fear when we have disagreements or arguments with our partners. But for those of us with secure bonds, it is a momentary blip. The fear is quickly and easily tamped down as we realize that there is no real threat

or that our partner will reassure us if we ask.

The more Carol blames Jim, the more he withdraws. And the more he withdraws, the more frantic and cutting become her attacks.