The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy

The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. By John M. Gottman. Pp. 456. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

If you want to read a book that will improve your track record when working with couples, then John Gottman's The Marriage Clinic should be at the top of your reading list. Gottman has been studying marriages for over 30 years using perceptual, interactive-behavioral, and physiological measures to tease out important practice concepts that are sometimes counter-intuitive. In fact, Gottman's research has identified a number of myths and mistakes in the field that, when embraced by marital therapists, probably decrease their effectiveness and potentially increase the likelihood of relapse and divorce.

Gottman's research has led him to develop a relatively simple framework for describing and treating marriages. This framework, which he calls the sound marital house, comprised of different floors or levels,...