O'Grady Psychology Associates

Psychotherapy, Marriage Counseling, Neuropsychological Assessment

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The Fourth Horseman: Stonewalling

"The Great Wall"During lectures about marriage, I have used this photo of the Great Wall of China to illustrate Gottman’s fourth horseman of the apocalypse: Stonewalling.

When we were in China a few years ago, we had the good fortune to see this magnificent stone wall when there were no other people around. It helped that our driver got hopelessly lost, and we ended up going several hours out of our way. But happily, we ended up at this stretch of the Great Wall that was not on the typical tourist path.

Putting up Walls

Walking up the steep steps gave me a view of the entire countryside, but scaling a partner’s emotional wall isn’t that easy. I reflected on why we put up walls and how these walls get maintained over the years. Walls are built for protection—to keep others out—and to keep control. In marriage, partners who have trouble with emotional self-regulation get overwhelmed emotionally, but also physiologically, even if they’re unaware of the raised heart rate and adrenaline that are making them feel literally attacked.  That’s why they put up walls.

Learning to Self-Soothe During Difficult Conversations

Emotionally checking out of the conversation creates the illusion of safety. Ignoring the difficult discussion, looking or turning away, or even leaving the room, puts the overwhelmed person back in control, but doesn’t solve anything. Learning to be aware of uncomfortable feelings, then how to self-soothe and maintain composure, helps partners stay in a heated conversation and also to listen and respond. That way, the discussion can move ahead without getting gridlocked.

A good technique for self-soothing to manage anxiety is Mindfulness-Based Relaxation Training, something I often recommend to clients who want to stop stonewalling. Learning this form of meditation is very useful in helping stay in control, calmly, without having to create a distancing wall—even when discussing the most upsetting topics. 

 

 

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Shortcutting Criticism

In the biblical Book of Revelations, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse signal the end of the world through conquest, war, famine, and death. The Four Horsemen that Dr. John Gottman’s research has identified as signaling the end of a relationship are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—communication styles that threaten a marriage’s health and longevity.

When I first see a couple for relationship counseling, I assess their communication behaviors by using a set of questionnaires developed from the research of Dr. Gottman. To evaluate criticism, for example, each client answers yes or no to statements such as “I feel attacked or criticized when we talk about our disagreements” or “My partner uses phrases like ’you always’ or ’you never’ when complaining.”

Defensiveness is seen in statements like “Many of our issues are just not my problem” or “I have to defend myself because the charges against me are so unfair.” Statements such as “I try to point out the flaws in my partner’s personality that need improvement” or “I feel disgusted by some of my partner’s attitudes” assess contempt. Stonewalling is when one partner just tunes out and ignores the other, usually after a barrage of criticism. Putting up a wall of silence is an attempt to protect the stonewaller from getting flooded by physical and emotional over- reactivity. Of all the Horsemen, Dr. Gottman says this is the most likely to end a relationship.

The good news is that each of these Horsemen has an antidote. The first step is recognizing these interactions when they occur. Often when couples are stuck in a cycle of negative communication, each person is unable to see his or her own part in the problem. But with gentle coaching, clients learn to notice when they are criticizing, being contemptuous, on the defensive, or stonewalling.

Next, I show couples alternative ways to expressing themselves by using a specific antidote to each Horseman. Today, let’s talk about the antidote to criticism.

Learning to complain without blame is key to short-circuiting criticism. Any relationship may give rise to legitimate complaints. But the key to avoiding defensiveness in your partner is to complain in a way that does not place blame.

The formula is pretty simple: “When _________ happens, it makes me feel____________. What I would like from you is_________________.” For instance, when Judy says to Mark, “You’re always putting your parents’ needs before mine. You’re such an inconsiderate jerk,” the likely response from Mark might be, “I do not! And if I do, it’s because you don’t take any time to connect with them, so I have to do it all!” Placing blame just engenders defensiveness, continuing the cycle of criticism.

Helping Judy to find a different way to express her feelings might sound something like this: “Mark, I miss feeling connected to you when we are with your family. Do you think that this weekend when we see them, we can stay close? It would help me if you’d check in with me every once in a while.”  In this version, Judy takes responsibility for her feelings and then asks directly for what she wants without making Mark out to be the bad guy. Mark, in turn, can listen to Judy’s request without feeling he has to justify and defend.

Antidotes to the other three Horsemen will be taken up in another post. But understanding how these concepts affect communication in marriage goes a long way to helping couples manage conflict.

 

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Updating Your Love Maps—Keeping Friendship in Your Marriage

“You like tomato and I like tomahto”

Know your partner well to keep friendship in marriage.
Cherry tomatoes, late summer harvest

Last night I made a salad for dinner.  I picked fresh lemon cucumbers and baby lettuces from the garden, topping it with a grilled chicken breast we had cooked the night before.  David added whole red cherry and yellow pear tomatoes still warm from the garden.At the end of the meal, the tomatoes were left uneaten, because while I love sliced cherry tomatoes, I don’t like them whole.  “Ah,” I jokingly told David, ”time  to update your love map!”

What is a love map, and why does it need updating?

When couples first get to know each other, they have deep, intense talks, learning everything they can about one another. As they’re courting (or going through the “mate selection process,” to use the sociological jargon) they learn each other’s history, concerns, preferences, and world views, while yet undistracted by jobs, maintaining a home, childrearing, or finances. They keep a cognitive map of the relationship and its history.

In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. John Gottman calls these cognitive spaces “love maps.” Making cognitive room for the marriage involves remembering major events in each other’s history and updating this information—the love map—as the facts and feelings of your partner’s world changes. Partners with good love maps know each other intimately and are well-versed in each other’s likes and dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams.

Why it is Important to Know Your Partner Well —Friendship in Marriage Depends on Updating Love Maps

But couples don’t always update their love maps. All kinds of stresses, personal problems, and life events can intervene in a couple’s positive regard for each other, and even destroy the deep friendship that is the basis for a good marriage. Anger and resentment can create “negative sentiment override,” in which everything—every conversation, mistake, action—gets interpreted more and more negatively. By the time couples enter counseling, they have forgotten what they love about each other and have stopped keeping track of relevant information about each other, meaning their maps are out of date. When partners stop paying attention to what is important to one another and instead keep a mental scorecard of mistakes, slights, and offenses, the positive perspective turns sour.

Because love maps are so important, one of the first homework assignments I suggest in couples therapy is the Love Map Exercise. For anyone old enough to remember the TV show “The Newlywed Game,” it’s the same idea. The questions are simple and fun. For instance, “Name your partner’s two closest friends,” or “What is your partner’s favorite music?” It is usually an easy assignment.

Updating your love maps requires communication about your likes and dislikes, and this is true for both partners. Do you like your cherry tomatoes sliced or whole?  After all these years, my partner didn’t realize I don’t eat whole cherry tomatoes.  But it is my responsibility to tell him this. If I don’t, he’ll keep adding them to our salads without slicing them first, and I’ll keep leaving them behind.

It may sound simple, but any map needs updating to stay relevant—even if the new information is just tomatoes, tomahtoes.

Reference:

Gottman, John; Silver, Nan (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York, NY: Crown Publishers imprint (Three Rivers Press).

Originally published here.

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Learning to Stay Calm During Difficult Discussions

By the time couples come to couples therapy they have a built up a lot of tension around recurring problems. For instance, when Joe and Amy came to therapy they had been arguing about who has it harder with respect to chores and child-care. Each felt they were sacrificing more than the other. This led to the typical quid pro quo or tit-for-tat scenario. Many of their arguments were just different versions of the same core conflict. Their discussions quickly escalate.

Couples come to therapy to resolve conflicts and learn better ways to communicate when disagreements arise. When the same issues arise again and again—often over seemingly simple daily routines like who does what in terms of housework, childcare, or social and recreational time— we call this a perpetual problem. Stressful times or life transitions such as retirement, job loss, childbirth, empty nest, or illness can activate these perpetual problems, leading to increased conflict and negative feelings about the marriage.

When a couple first starts therapy, one or both partners will be thinking negative thoughts about their partner.

Gottman Method Couples Therapy, developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman teaches couples to manage conflict rather than eliminate it, and learning to stay calm during difficult discussions is an important tool in managing that conflict. The stress of arguments creates a “fight or flight” response that is both physical and emotional: the heart rate increases, muscles become tense, blood flow decreases to the hands and feet. These physiologic signs are signals that one is overwhelmed or “flooded.”

Studies have shown that this level of heightened arousal affects the ability to accurately recall events, stay focused, and listen to another. Feeling flooded can also lead to the defense mechanism of stonewalling, or shutting down.

Shutting down serves to protect the stonewaller from the discomfort of increased flooding, but it effectively stalls further communication. Indeed, stonewalling is the fourth and most dangerous of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” emotional patterns that can sabotage a relationship, according to John Gottman’s book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.

The Importance of Self-soothing During Conflicts

Calming down, then, in the midst of a conflicted discussion allows both partners to continue to work on the issue in a more productive and compassionate way. In couples therapy, when one partner is flooded, I gently stop them and ask them to become aware of their arousal level. I have seen profound effects from this simple intervention. It is one of the cornerstones of the Gottman approach and one that has proved to be immensely helpful. This step alone increases the client’s attention to their own reactions and can take them away from the blame game. Later, clients can be taught to recognize for themselves the sometimes subtle onset of tension that can quickly escalate to anger.

Simply noticing heightened arousal may not be enough, and this is where therapists can help teach self-soothing techniques. Many couples therapists will tell their clients to “take a time out” when overwhelmed with emotion. However, many people who come to counseling simply don’t know how to relax during a difficult conversation. Taking just ten minutes of a session to do a relaxation exercise—focusing on slowing breathing, heart rate, and noticing sensations of warmth and letting go of unnecessary muscle tension—can give that necessary pause before resuming a dialogue that has become heated. When Joe and Amy become flooded in a session, they stop looking at each other, shrug their shoulders, and stop talking. Other couples may raise their voices and talk at each other, rather than with each other. It is at this point, that I may ask them to take a few minutes to pay attention to their breathing.

That’s especially important because when one partner is flooded, both are flooded: the emotional build-up is reciprocal. Teaching self-soothing in the moment will lead to new skills in communication and will improve conflict management. The awareness of cues that lead to over-arousal is the first step in helping a couple slow down enough to effectively process and continue a conversation. What we are in fact doing is teaching a form of mindfulness, even during an argument.

Using self-soothing during a couples session when one or the other partner is flooded is surprisingly easy. Perhaps couples’ therapists do not use this powerful technique because they assume that it will take the couple away from the issue they are discussing in a therapy session. However, to let an argument continue to the point of emotional and physical flooding will only leave the couple feeling worse at the end of the therapy hour. Taking just a few minutes of the session to be guided into a relaxation exercise can have profound effects because it will slow things down enough so that the discussion can continue in a more productive and caring way.

It is my deep belief that teaching a couple to self-soothe and ultimately to soothe one another brings depth and empathic attunement to the marriage. This obviously benefits the couple but has a ripple effect on the family. As we know, children model their parents’ emotional regulation or dis-regulation. When kids are able to feel safe around parents, even in the midst of an argument, they will gradually internalize the ability to do their own self-soothing.