The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy

The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy John M. Gottman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company (www.wwnorton.com). 1999, 456 pp., $49.00 (hardcover).

The dedication of The Marriage Clinic is written by John M. Gottman to his friend, Neil Jacobson, with a simple acknowledgment of his late colleague's efforts to understand marital relationships and to realistically appraise the value of modern marital therapy. It is an appropriate introduction to this remarkable book which fulfills the promises of both its title and subtitle. Gottman scrutinizes existing research, including his own, rejects myths about marriage, and offers a theory based on scientific investigations of marital processes. This is followed by a thorough and detailed description of his clinical practice, which intertwines the assessment process and modularized treatment, both of which are clearly linked to his theory.

Part I presents an analysis of the literature on marital relationships, healthy as well as distressed, and a theory of marriage that provides the rationale for the clinical approaches described in the subsequent sections. The dictum that a clear and reasonable conceptualization of the problem must precede treatment is taken seriously here.

Chapter 1 clarifies popular misconceptions about the nature of the dysfunction in a failing marriage, debunks myths about divorce, and defines the critical structural and functional components of a successful marriage. Gottman challenges common views of active listening, anger expression, and reciprocity, among other process variables that have figured prominently in theories of and therapies for marital...