Quotes from Sue Johnson

The most functional way to regulate difficult emotions in love relationships is to share them.

no one can dance with a partner and not touch each other's raw spots. We must know what these raw spots are and be able to speak about them in a way that pulls our partner closer to us.

As Aristotle said, "What a society honors will be cultivated." It is time for us to understand, honor, and cultivate the deepest relational elements in our nature.

Jack Kornfield offers a beautiful image for our new understanding: "We can let ourselves be carried by the river of feeling—because we know how to swim.

We, too, as the Celtic saying goes, "live in the shelter of each other." World War II historians have noted that the unit of survival in concentration camps was the pair, not the individual. Surveys show that married men and women generally live longer than do their single peers.

Learning to love and be loved is, in effect, about learning to tune in to our emotions so that we know what we need from a partner and expressing those desires openly, in a way that evokes sympathy and support from him or her.

Distressed partners no longer see each other as their emotional safe haven. Our lover is supposed to be the one person we can count on who will always respond. Instead, unhappy partners feel emotionally deprived, rejected, even abandoned. In that light, couples' conflicts assume their true meaning: they are frightened protests against eroding connection and a demand for emotional reengagement.

without emotion to guide us, we have no compass. We are bereft of direction and have nothing to move us toward one option rather than another. We are stuck pondering all the possibilities.

Indeed, says psychologist Dan Stern of the University of Geneva, the brain is so relational that our nervous system is actually "constructed to be captured by the nervous systems of others, so that we can experience others as if from within their skin, as well as from within our own.

Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay in his book on the trauma of combat, Odysseus in America, reminds us that there are "two momentous human universals": that we are all born helpless and dependent, and that we are all mortal and we know it. The only healthy way to deal with this vulnerability is to reach out and hold each other. Then, calmed and strengthened, we can walk out into the world

This healthy dependence is the essence of romantic love. The bodies of lovers are linked in a "neural duet." One person sends out signals that alter the hormone levels, cardiovascular function, body rhythms, and even immune system of the other. In loving connection, the cuddle hormone oxytocin floods lovers' bodies, bringing a calm joy and the sense that everything is right with the world. Our bodies are set up for this kind of connection.

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. —Ken Kesey   Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense. —e. e. cummings

Shakespeare asks, "Tell me where is fancy bred…in the heart or in the head?

The more I _________, the more you _________ and then the more I _________, and round and round we go.

Love is the best survival mechanism there is

Emotion comes from a Latin word emovere, to move. We talk of being "moved" by our emotions, and we are "moved" when those we love show their deeper feelings to us. If partners were to reconnect, they indeed had to let their emotions move them into new ways of responding to each other. My clients had to learn to take risks, to show the softer sides of themselves, the sides they learned to hide in the Demon Dialogues.

Despite rejection by the establishment, Bowlby pioneered on, giving form to a theory of what he called attachment. (The story goes that when asked by his wife why he didn't give it its rightful name, a theory of love, he replied, "What? I'd be laughed out of science.")

Fifty years ago noted animal researcher Harry Harlow, in an address to the American Psychological Association, observed, "As far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in their mission…The little we write about it has been better written by poets and novelists.

The key to restoring connection is, first, interrupting and dismantling these destructive sequences and then actively constructing a more emotionally open and receptive way of interacting, one in which partners feel safe confiding their hidden fears and longings.

Trauma is any terrifying event that instantly changes the world as we know it, leaving us helpless and emotionally overwhelmed.

For humans," says psychologist Ed Tronick of the University of Massachusetts, "the maintenance of [emotional balance] is a dyadic collaborative process." In other words, we are designed to deal with emotion in concert with another person—not by ourselves.

The demand-withdraw pattern is not just a bad habit, it reflects a deeper underlying reality: such couples are starving emotionally. They are losing the source of their emotional sustenance. They feel deprived. And they are desperate to regain that nurturance.

Religion has used ritual forever. I remember a famous study led by psychologist Alfred Tomatis of a group of clinically depressed monks. After much examination, researchers concluded that the group's depression stemmed from their abandoning a twice-daily ritual of gathering to sing Gregorian chants. They had lost the sense of community and the comfort of singing together in harmony. Creating beautiful music together was a formal recognition of their connection and a shared moment of joy.

The quality of our love relationships is also a big factor in how mentally and emotionally healthy we are. We have an epidemic of anxiety and depression in our most affluent societies. Conflict with and hostile criticism from loved ones increase our self-doubts and create a sense of helplessness, classic triggers for depression. We need validation from our loved ones. Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold!