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Topic hub

Couples & relationships

Gottman, EFT, and the repair-work that makes a marriage stick.

In this guide

Modality overviews, couples-distress guidance, and the worksheets clinicians most often use between sessions — soft start-ups, repair attempts, bids, and the Four Horsemen.

2 modalities1 disorders9 worksheets2 cases2 populations1 client explainers

Modalities

The therapies most relevant to this topic.

Gottman Method Couples Therapy

Forty years of observational research on couples, translated into a structured therapy.

Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples

Distress is an attachment cry; therapy creates new bonding events that reshape the bond.

Disorders

First-line picks and clinical guidance for the presentations under this topic.

Couples Distress

Negative cycles, contempt, withdrawal, or attachment injuries between partners.

Two strongly evidence-based approaches dominate couples therapy. They are largely complementary — EFT goes deeper into attachment emotion, Gottman provides structured assessment and skill-building.

First-line:EFT · Gottman

Worksheets

Free, printable, Quick-Send to clients.

Four Horsemen & Antidotes

Gottman — the four predictors of relationship breakdown, and the way back

Bids for Connection

Gottman — the tiny moments that build (or erode) a relationship

Repair Attempts

Gottman — small phrases to de-escalate mid-conflict

Soft Startup Scripts

Gottman's gentle opening — drafted, not improvised

Gottman Repair Checklist

The phrases that keep a fight from becoming the fight

Fair Fighting Rules

Ten ground rules to make a hard conversation survivable

I feel ___ when ___ because ___ — drafted, not improvised

Attachment Styles Worksheet

Read your pattern under stress — and one earned-security practice

Boundaries Worksheet

Name the cost, hold the limit, write the script

For clients

Plain-language explainers you can share or open together in session.

What is attachment — and how does it shape adult relationships?

The blueprint for love you learned before you could speak.

Worked cases

Anonymized vignettes with formulation across 2–3 modalities.

C.E. & H.E. · Mid 30s (both)

Relational distress (no individual diagnosis)

Classic pursuer-distancer cycle escalating since first child; not yet contemptuous; both engaged.

M.W. & T.W. · Mid 40s (both)

Relational distress post-infidelity disclosure

Disclosed affair 8 weeks ago; both want to repair; betrayed partner cycling between rage, grief, and intrusive imagery.

Populations

What changes when you sit with this population.

Working with couples

The relationship is the client. Your job is to track the pattern, not to be the umpire.

Working with LGBTQ+ clients

Affirmative care isn't a modality — it's a stance that runs through everything else.

How-to

Step-by-step walkthroughs.

How to run a Gottman-style repair conversation with couples

Process a regrettable incident without re-litigating who was right.

Other topics

🧭 Trauma therapy 🌀 Anxiety therapy 🌑 Depression therapy 🌿 Somatic & nervous system 🌅 Addiction & recovery 🧩 Kids & adolescents 🍽️ Eating disorders