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About this episode

One common struggle many face in a relationship is the challenge of getting off the emotional roller coaster. The highs and lows, misunderstandings, and unresolved conflicts can create a cycle of emotional upheaval, leaving partners feeling disconnected and frustrated. But what if we could find a way to smooth the ride and create deeper intimacy? If you've ever felt caught in a whirlwind of emotions in your relationships, you're not alone, and there are ways to navigate this complex terrain.

In this episode, we delve into strategies and insights aimed at helping listeners break free from these patterns. With expert guidance, the discussion illuminates ways couples can enhance their emotional intelligence, communication skills, and conflict resolution abilities. By exploring both the individual and relational aspects of these dynamics, the conversation provides tools for transforming the way partners interact with each other. This episode offers a chance to learn how to nurture a relationship's foundation while navigating life's inevitable challenges, ultimately creating a more harmonious and enduring partnership.

Susan Thau, Ph. D., Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, wife, mother and grandmother treats individuals, couples and families, working intensively with emotional states. Along with Sondra Goldstein, Susan studied in a consultation group with Alan Schore, becoming interested in attachment and affect regulation. Dr Thau began as a parent educator, later Kaiser Permanente, and eventually private practice in Los Angeles where she specializes in Emotionally Focused Therapy.

Dr. Goldstein is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice for many years in Los Angeles. She is a former Clinical Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Psychology. Past study with Allan Shore, PhD, enhances her understanding of neuro-psychobiology in the processing of emotion in couples. Her study of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) helps in understanding emotional dynamics in couples therapy. Dr. Goldstein is also a wife of 53 years, a mother, and a grandmother.

Episode Highlights

03:56 Understanding the framework of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

09:39 Meeting the authors: a journey of professional collaboration.

10:51 The power of vulnerability and emotional connection.

15:36 Coregulation and the impact of presence in therapy.

18:09 Navigating emotional triggers and attachment styles.

21:44 Challenges of vulnerability and the role of the therapist.

25:54 The importance of repair and building resilience.

28:30 Acknowledging individual differences in processing.

31:45 Demystifying therapy: The role of the therapist as a stranger attractor.

34:12 Developing a secure base: The journey of earned security.

39:20 Processing stress: Sensitive emotional and aggressive responses.

41:15 Dealing with differences and building a strong relationship foundation.

46:10 The role of curiosity and connection.

49:16 Resources and guidance for relationship growth.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Begin by turning your attention inward, focusing on your body and deepening your breath to become more in tune with your emotional states.
• Identify the patterns or “dances” you fall into with your partner, which may interfere with your connection, and work to name and alter them.
• Practice being curious about your partner’s inner world rather than assuming their experiences or intentions, which can foster deeper understanding and empathy.
• Work on skills related to secure functioning, like emotional intelligence, to better navigate and respond to intense emotional states.
• Pay attention to non-verbal cues—body language, tone of voice, facial expressions—as they play a crucial role in relational dynamics.
• Embrace repair efforts after conflicts, understanding that setbacks are opportunities to strengthen the bond through patience and understanding.
• Engage in couples therapy to get an inside look into the dynamics at play and begin processing emotions in a safe space with expert guidance.
• Recognize that relational work is ongoing; continually invest in the relationship by developing skills and understanding challenges together.

Mentioned

Living Love That Lasts (Youtube) (video)

The Roller Coaster of Emotion in Couples Therapy (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Evolve in Love (program)

Connect with Drs. Susan Thau & Sondra Goldstein

Website: susanthauphd.com

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Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

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Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like it to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Sondra and Susan, thank you so much for being with us. This is take two. We attempted to do an interview last week and my internet went out. So I'm grateful that you both were able to make yourselves available and really carve out this time to share with us just so much about the two of you, the important work you do in the couples' therapy world.

Let's just get to know you a little bit more here. So people have heard your background and your credentials, and also, you have a longstanding professional relationship. Where would you like to start in helping people just get acquainted with you?

Well, one thing about Susan and me, as a couple in writing, is that we often really coordinate quite nicely without even planning it. I'll say something, Susan will pick up on it, vice versa. We have, I think, a very good dialogue back and forth about very important things. Then in turn, we write about these things, but first we talk about them. That's very important. The communication part is very important. So there's this nice tier in a way, of our work as a couple, our communicating, and then our writing about that very same process for patients.

That's beautiful. For listeners, Susan and Sandra wrote a book: Rollercoaster of Emotions in Couples Therapy. So in the book, in reading the book, you both do such a beautiful job of giving a bit of a narrative around one couple's journey. So it's not an excerpt from a couple, and as you both described when we were talking last week, this is a composite. It's not two real people in relationship. It's a composite of an amalgamation of many couples, and we get to see a journey. So for anybody listening that's like what happens in couples' therapy, this is an inside look at not only the couple's journey, the space that the couple's therapist is holding, and a bit of a sneak peek around what the couple's therapist is experiencing. Sondra, I love what you're saying about just how much goes on in the background between the two of you, and what's really sweet is you both have the first initial. So in reading the book, it's Dr. S. So it's written by both of you, but we don't know. It's, again, your joint voice here. Is that right?

Yes. Just by coincidence, we have the same first initial.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

That was one of the main intents of this book, was to really demystify and humanize the experience, and really go into what goes on inside as a therapist through the process—from the very beginning, from the first phone call, throughout the whole experience of doing treatment. So that was the purposeful intention.

When I started reading, I was like: Oh, I feel like I'm working. I was like, I have to shift and really be open to just being in that professional headspace. One of the things that I share with you both is the love of EFT and just what the focus is, and this is just a guiding light throughout. Do you want to speak to that for people who maybe don't understand couples' therapy, but also, what the real focus is throughout, and just the importance around what the intent is and what is being cultivated in the process. I mean, there's so many things. But do you want to speak about that at all, Susan?

Absolutely, let's see what I can do with that. Well, we were both drawn to EFT after our initial work with affect regulation, emotional regulation. Couples' therapy, particularly Susan Johnson, who was the originator of this after many years of research, codified it into a process which really focuses on the inner world of the participants. With the premise that unless you really feel your partner and understand their emotional experience, you are going to have a very different, very superficial kind of relationship, which is contextual. It's about what happens outside. As we all know, life presents many, many, many challenges, and developmentally it changes throughout the years.

So EFT tries to take and look at the couple where they are in their particular moment in time, what goals they have that have been interrupted, but what's going on between them that's blocking them from being able to achieve those goals. What's the dynamic? What's the roadblock? We're process consultants. We look at the process that's going on in the room, and we have the language to begin to talk about it in attachment terms, which is what we did in the book. Because attachment—how we relate to the people who are significant in our life and what we learned in our life as we grew up—we carry with us for every day, throughout our lifetime. It emerges, obviously not in some specific language, but in the way we treat each other. So as therapists, we do our best to describe that. Our couple, the partners both had had early trauma, and they were both ambivalent and avoidant detached. So they had great difficulty in engaging with each other after the initial joyful vacation-style romance.

Part of EFT is helping couples recognize those patterns between them, and helping them develop language for those patterns. Susan Johnson refers to it as the dance that the couple does, and we try to help the couple recognize the dance, be able to name it, be able to modify it. The very first part, of course, is a couple being able to observe themselves going through these patterns. So it's very, very helpful. Once they have these tools, they can begin to use them outside the therapy hour.

Absolutely, and I want to continue this thread. But as a side, your background, how was that, if I may ask, with what your training had been prior to approaching the EFT? It sounds like you had such a basis already that was such a great blend, just to support this idea of being emotional process consultants in your training. I'm curious if you want to speak to that at all.

My formal training really was more originally in Gottman, but then evolved into EFT. I have to be honest with you and say though, for many years, I actually worked developing my own system and my own idea about couples, and from that interest then evolved the interest in EFT. But Susan and I came from an attachment background in terms of our study with Alan Shore. So that background really prepared us very well for Susan Johnson.

Okay, that's what I was curious about. Excellent.

Well, and to add to that, Jessica, I am an analyst as well. So I had gone through, I guess it was about three or four years of very intensive treatment with individuals. From that, what I experienced was that no matter who the person was, there was always, in some sense, another person in the room, what some people refer to as the fifth person, because it's maybe a group. But that to me became very central. Like, who was really there, what was happening? So I became interested very much so in extending that. That was my personal need. I needed that to do the work I was doing, and I felt very driven to find that.

Like you could feel it in the room. For people listening that might not know what you're referring to, would you be willing to elaborate?

Absolutely. In other words, when you are with a single person, their longings, their dreams, their experience, their pain, almost always has to do with another, someone else. It was that experience of wondering and wanting to access that other person that I became really interested in what it would be like to be with another person. Two people, in other words, EFT as couples or EFFT with families. So this book in some sense, it really isn't about just a husband and wife or partners. It's about any two people who are struggling and intimately involved.

Yes, it touches my heart, just this work around what you're able to hold and what we're able to hold in supporting couples in their lived experience and what still lives in them. To have that compassion and that holding, and hopefully be able to have some metabolizing or reprocessing what didn't have an opportunity to be processed at an earlier age.

Sometimes the other in the room is not necessarily a person, it can be an event. For instance, for Maria, a very important event was the fact that she had been raped, sexually assaulted earlier in her life. She'd never told her partner about this. So that event was there in the room within her. It was very helpful at some point, as we described, that she shared this with John. Then the two of them could address that third person, if you will, together, and look at it together. I'm sure as you remember, he had a very compassionate response to it. That then helped her, I think, deal with it in a very different way, and she felt someone was supporting her in that trauma, someone was sharing it

When she had been so alone. You both do a beautiful job of touching on multicultural issues and ethnic differences, and that is perhaps even what you're describing. It's not even a person, it's an experience and culture that is very impactful that maybe isn't a human per se. It could manifest as an interaction with others or an event.

Yeah, there's another thing that's coming up for me. I think that repair is multilayered. So in individual therapy or with one person, you're getting one part of mirroring and confirming and validating, when you have the power of multiple people. 

So the novelty of that stimulates something else between them, and that powerful piece affects therapy. That's what the power of repair is, at least as we experience in these dyadic relationships when we're part of them.

Yes, that's precisely where I was going. Just that we were talking before this, that the therapist has an opportunity to model and really be a force in the room, if you will, to be so attuned, to be in this emotional processing, in this very secure way. Sondra?

The visual of a strange attractor is the butterfly in Ohio. The wings of the butterfly in the Ohio create a tsunami in Japan. So it's that visual. The very subtle things that a therapist can do within the process with the couple, that very subtle difference can be felt in a very profound way by the couple. So that's why we use the concept of the strange attractor in terms of a system. The therapist comes into the system, and by her view, her words, her posture, her relationship with a couple, a new dynamic is brought into the room for the couple. I think it's a very important concept. It's really what we all are doing when we're working with a couple.

Thank you. Also, just the opportunity to help stabilize or offer attunement and modeling of that, that that is changing the system and introducing something new, and also giving perhaps a different path or opportunity. Would you like to speak to the possibility there around being a model here for this more secure relating?

I think one part of the modeling is the encouragement to look at visual cues. In the book, we describe the therapist sometimes asking John to look at Maria, or Maria to look at John. At times, when one of them would be looking away, that the therapist might comment on that and ask them to turn back. So there's a sense of looking at the visual cues. The auditory cues as well. When Maria's voice would go down, sometimes she'd go down to a whisper. Using those cues, so the couple begins to learn more about how they're communicating together, not just with words, but with gestures, with facial expressions, bodily posture, all of those things.

Oh my goodness. I mean, what you're describing, many of us have heard that communication more than 80% is nonverbal. If we use polyvagal language, the neuroception, our nervous systems are tracking and feeling the nervous systems of others around us, or co-regulation. Can we back up a moment? Would either one of you like to talk about the importance of co-regulation and how partners or mates are looking and tracking one another for a sense of that attachment security or the dissatisfaction? Talk to us a little bit more about just big picture around what's happening in relationship here.

I think that's part of what Susan Johnson does very beautifully in EFT, because she encourages the therapist to look closely at the communication that's going on verbally and non-verbally. So that attunement by the therapist or the couple first is modeled, and then in turn, it helps the couple begin to do that with each other, looking for the nonverbal cues. It's so important. In the therapy with this couple, as you recall, there are lots of moments where the therapist encourages them to look at each other, and understand what that bodily posture means, or what that facial grimace means, or what that putting the head down and shame means, all of those things. So that the couple begins to be able to translate the non-verbal into thoughts about each other.

Thank you. Susan?

Well, taking it just slightly into the brain, which is another part of what we've tried to do, that really normalizes the process we believe in terms of, and we do talk about that, how we process things as humans. That our first experience is what we feel, which then gets translated as we go into our thoughts. So we help people to really begin to understand that what do you feel, where is it? That's why we often ask, as you know, what are you feeling in your body, what's happening inside of you? I noticed you're ringing with your hands. What's happening in there? So all of those are ways that we begin to help, or literally model teach, that there are many, many other elements, and that all the things that happen are ways of coping and trying to manage with the experience of being a human being.

Yes. One of the things that I'm grateful for, the attachment theory with Bowlby and all the people that have contributed to the field of understanding the attachment working model, and just how it shows up in adult romantic relationship. Really, my understanding is from, I think the saying goes from cradle to grave, that we are wired to be in connection, and that we need this other, that safe haven, if you will, always. That it's like air, right? It's like, we do need connection. So what you're describing is just so important, and I don't know that it gets emphasized enough. It feels as though what you're offering is this opportunity to mirror, and you talk about mirror neurons, so maybe that's a good place to even mention here. But the opportunity to slow it down and really have observation, so that people can make contact with their lived present experience.

Because one of the other things you talk about is how some of these very intense emotion have the amygdala hijack, or that we might get flooded with the intensity. That, in milliseconds, is getting us into this state of arousal that we are not able perhaps to fully be in contact with self. It moves so quickly, and that's for one person, and then you add another person, and then the relational history. There's so much going on and this can get off-track so quickly. Would you love to or can you speak to this at all a little bit more?

You're saying it so well, Jessica. You're saying it beautifully. You're absolutely right. 

That putting the nonverbal into verbal is the key really to all that we do, being able to translate and being able to understand each other's attachment styles. John is very insecure avoidant. Maria is very insecure ambivalent. But they begin to learn what their styles are in relating.

Yes, and then it makes sense. There's no pathology. I think sometimes people can point fingers around the behavior being not very helpful, and we need to be more secure. But yet, the compassionate stance and to have understanding around. I think this comes back perhaps to the modeling, that what you're both doing—or a guiding professional in this space has an opportunity in making what's non-verbal, verbal, and slowing it down—is an opportunity for that attunement, for being seen, and for it to have a place in the room. To be supported in this non-judgmental way that makes welcome, and then there's a bit more space to process.

Yeah, I was thinking as you were saying about triggering, that generally is probably the thing that brings people into couple therapy oftentimes, is that they find themselves in that cycle of pulling apart. Not all couples, but that often is. That process is so overwhelming, because what we try to show is how it doesn't matter who it is, it destabilizes you. 

We talk about that in the process, slow it down. What's really important is, unfortunately, but actually fortunately, it happens in the room. So it's not an abstraction, and that's the key. We have to work with that, and we try to show in our narrative, how that affects the therapist internally when they're going through the hijack of the couple in front of them moment to moment.

Yes. For people listening, Sondra, do you want to, or either one of you, describe this a little bit more?

One example of that is, when Maria discovers that John has a porn addiction, that truly was a trauma for her within their relationship. When she discovered it, she went into amygdala hijack state. She was furious. She didn't know what to do with her anger. She felt so rejected by him. So we talk about that within the session and help her understand what that means to him. She was seeing it totally as a rejection of her. But in the session, we began to talk about what this means to him, and he was able to talk about his background. The background as a young man, and then later on, as an adult, that became something so important to him. It had a meaning totally apart from her, and that she didn't understand until he was able to talk about it. So she began to see his “symptom” as something other than just a rejection of her.

Yes, and these have the potential for real transformative moments when there can be enough space and safety for there to be real hearing. Often, what you both do is such a great job of, I think I was commenting in our last attempt at our interview that I have clients tell me that they'll read a book and it just sounds so easy. The excerpt just makes it so beautifully packaged with a pretty little bow on it. You both do such a great job of like, one person can be very vulnerable and share, and the other person is blocked by their own trigger or their own distrust or fears. So that you really help us work this and recognize that this is a dynamic and a process, that it's not always super seamless. Because I think sometimes people too, I'll add, that they'll make an attempt at being vulnerable, whether or not they're reading something or hearing something, and they're like: Well, that didn't work, or that didn't go well, so armor up again. So I think the safety and the modeling and the importance of a real skilled guide here is very, very helpful to navigate the layers of potential triggers, and maybe who else is in the room, to your point, Susan.

Yeah. What comes up for me when you're talking, Jessica, is that you mentioned the purpose of the book. We're hoping to demystify couple therapy, but to really emphasize that the foundation of a relationship is going to be something you keep building on over time. That it isn't something that's a one-off and done, and that it takes the idea of understanding and caring about what your partner or your person is going through, what it is for them. That is something that has to be done in some way. I know you have your retreats and things where people begin to develop tools that you are putting together, and that's all part of it. It has to be consciously and intentionally a part of living. It doesn't just happen in some way without that.

No. Susan, as you mentioned earlier, that life will present hardships or obstacles that maybe we didn't anticipate, whether or not it's being an entrepreneur or having a child or certain something else that happens that will activate certain things that we weren't conscious of or really in touch with. It's a lifelong nurturing and development.

We refer to these events sometimes as life quakes, and they really shatter the foundation of a sense of security. Then it requires really almost a rewiring of our abilities to create the new ability to handle whatever this is. It isn't overnight, it's a long process, usually at least two to three years to work it through. But if a couple can stay together and work with each other through those life quakes, at the end, they have a much stronger relationship.

Yes. I'm getting a sense that one of the things that we're encouraging here is that, I want to say almost foundation or elemental elements of reaching to each other, while that might feel tricky and scary and difficult or inaccessible at times, but that there's a pattern or a way where couples or partners can find each other, that likely they're going to be able to negotiate these life quakes with more resource and support and strength. Also, I'm deeply compassionate, and I can raise my hand here, that when we haven't had that modeling, or we haven't had that lived experience of secure functioning, or we've had certain experiences that have posed great difficulty, there's a lot of uncertainty, or that's unknown uncharted territory. I can get it conceptually, but to actually be in practice of this secure functioning, if we will, or secure relating, reaching, attuning, that it can feel extremely confusing around how to deal with all that trigger or activation, and also how to find the other if we haven't known how to do that. That's why what you're emphasizing here of this couples' work is so supportive. I would just add, hopefully sooner rather than later, that this could be something that people can continue to replicate and utilize that will serve them well.

There's a story within the story. 

Because I think one very important concept is it's not a one-and-done. You have to practice, you have to try, you have to have the courage to try again. That, in a sense, is what the therapist models by working with the couple week to week and not giving up on them. There's a message of encouragement just in the process of couples' therapy.

To add to that, one of the important elements in the process has to do with the witnessing and noticing as the therapist, the outsider, the strange attractor, noticing moments that are then emphasized. Because obviously, in our life as we live it, these moments occur, but we miss them. They're just part of living. That piece is central, because it emphasizes the curative process of our efforts of being vulnerable and the payoff in the end. So I think what we're trying to put forward here, moment to moment, is how that process evolves, slowly, repetitively, and that the pathway in most cases is one of earned security. That was the other thing that we talk about specifically. It does not mean that you're destined because you have experiences over here when you're growing up that are not supportive. There is the possibility of literally rewiring the way you think about and live in your life.

Yes, the concept of earned security is so important for all of us as therapists to keep in mind. Because in the attachment theory itself, we can focus on these styles. But there is a sense, a very real sense, that those styles can change as a result of therapy. 

I love the concept, because it is really what we do. We help people to earn that sense of security together.

Yes. It's almost this coaching, this guiding and assisting, so that they can be able to live into these new moves, if you will, and the hope that comes with that. Also, just the real specific focus of the therapist or the guiding professional who is keeping very clear, this intention and this goal. Because there's a lot in the room. You talked about what even the therapist could feel like sometimes, it can be a lot of activation in the room or the couple's space. For the therapist, yes, it's not their relationship. But yes, they will likely feel it if they're attuned. Also, just where the support is for the therapist to stay in and trust in the process too.

I think we use ourselves when we are in that activation to actually use language and the experience to emphasize the enormity of what's happening, which adds another power. In other words, if I'm going through something that's very, very difficult, and feeling the effect of this tumult that's occurring, I'm going to mark that and in some way bring that into the session, and I do that. With pain of course, but it's real.

Taking attachment theory again, we hope that the couple can begin to feel that they as a couple are a secure base for each other. That they can go out into the world, deal with hardships in the world, but come back to each other and have that sense of safety. So I think that, if you think about it overall, that's what we're trying to help couples develop: a sense that their relationship is a secure base to come back to.

Yes, beautiful. Well, I would love to, I know we don't have a tremendous amount of time, but I was hoping that perhaps we could get a little more specific on the topic of how you're helping people understand that mates or individuals might process stress differently. This likely is related to their attachment style and also just how they process, and one of the things you're explaining is the sensitive emotional processor. So can we talk a little bit more about this?

I think with John and Maria, a very important emotion is the emotion of shame, and both of them have a great deal of shame about things that have happened in their background. So that sense of being able to take in a different view of an event or themselves in an event is so important. We're really re-categorizing events, helping them think of it differently, helping them think of the strength that they may have taken from it overall, rather than feeling it's something terrible and shameful. So I think we do a lot of that in individual and couple therapy.

Yes. It's helping, again, perhaps reprocess, that allows for a different felt experience. Even though the events or circumstances didn't change, there's a different way of being with it or experiencing it. It's so powerful. Yeah, Susan?

Well, what comes to mind actually is what's happening right now in the world in terms of the recent catastrophe here in Los Angeles. People experienced that event, even if they're in the same house, going through the exact same experience so differently, and the enormity of how that plays out, the conflict that comes from that. So that is an example, and with John and Maria, that certainly was the case in regards to their experience of their moving to the United States. Her feeling the pain of losing her job, her sense that he couldn't understand why that mattered to her, what that meant. He assumed that she was trying to leave him, leave the country. So we carry these things, and unless the person has the courage to actually go into their fears and their pain where they're in a frightened place, and begin to even use some kind of language to allow their partner to understand their inner world. That's the starting place of this process of repair.

Yes. And when so much stress is happening, it's easy to perceive the other, what it looks like on the outside, based on our own lens, our own frame. Largely, we're perhaps misperceiving, or that it's not actually what the other person is feeling. Do you want to say a little bit more about this conflict? Because not only are you saying it's a stressful event, but then the conflict of how they're responding and how they're interpreting each other and what that means, the meaning-making around it.

Being able to appreciate that the other person can have a totally different point of view on an event, and it's okay that they do. That's certainly a big part of what we're helping couples develop, a tolerance for difference, a tolerance for different processes, different fears, different areas of shame. 

Or assume the meaning. Well, I'm wondering if we can maybe give a few more examples here for people who are listening. In the book, you both talked about how perhaps one person might be a little bit more sensitive and emotionally processing, and they're going to be tracking.

Well, the way I conceptualize it, Jessica, would be that we are born with different wiring. So from who we are as individuals, we're different. We're snowflakes. There's no two, I assume. I guess through history, maybe there are some similarities. But a sensitive emotional processor has different wiring. Their sensation, literally, physically, in terms of cues, auditory. Some folks hear things acutely in a different way. Some folks, sensation-wise, their skin, their receptivity is different. Some of us are, words have meaning. I give an example, someone for whom every word in the context of doing therapy is taken in. For someone like myself where I may not speak that way, there's a constant coming up against. So these are all differences, and most of us don't really think about these things. We just assume that everyone's a human, but we're not. We're human, and.

We're human and, yes. How about the tending response or the aggression response? Would either one of you like to speak to the differences there?

Well, in general, research has shown that women, when they're faced with a stress or a rupture, their tendency is to go into repair and to help and to make better and to solve the problem. That's the tending response. Men sometimes, not always, can go into a state of anger, even rage, around issues that trouble them. In other words, rather than trying to solve it, they get angry about it. They want to basically destroy it, get rid of it. Let's just not feel that, let's just destroy it. In that process, there can be a sense of destroying the relationship, which is of course a major concern. I think, to me, that's the difference in the two responses.

Yes. I loved how you both acknowledged that perhaps the person that is more prone to that aggressive response might actually disassociate from that anger in an attempt to protect the relationship, as a way of mitigating their own anger to keep things more stable and not inflict or bring the anger in. Yet, the difference of that. The partner might see the dissociation or the flat face and read that as like: Oh, you don't care, or you are not having any response to this, or you don't seem stressed.

Yeah, I think John was a good example of that. That was his response. He'd get very angry at her, but he would shut down and he would actually disassociate and pull away. For Maria, that was just terrible because she wanted him to be there for her, to help her feel more secure in this strange land that she'd come into, a strange new place of work, new relationships. So very, very different for her. She wanted him to be there for her, and he couldn't be. But that's part of what happened in the course of their therapy. He learned how to be there in a more emotional way for her. Actually, we showed that pretty well in the book, how he really changed over time in that way—was able to look at her, was able to be there for her, hear her voice.

That's where then the therapeutic process of noting the moment to moment changes. But holding as a therapist, as the person outside the system, that there is something beyond this moment. For someone like John where there was nobody basically in his life that mirrored, the perception he was given about women and about the possibility of any kind of connection was negative because of his father's own lived experience. And he carried that, John did. So it was letting him see and experience something different in that moment with the process as it repeated over time in session, that helped him to begin to feel something else was possible, and then naming that, making it explicit.

Yes, and the space to wonder right with him, so that that meaning and that felt lived experience can become more visible. Because when we, again, are assuming meaning or assuming something based on what we see on the outside, we could be entirely wrong. So to have that ability and that safety to wonder, and then to have that be more explicit.

It's constantly a word we use about being curious. It's one of the signature, I think, processes. As humans, if we don't linger slowly and really make an effort of trying of trying to understand another person, that in and of itself takes time. But it's also a beautiful thing. Because, again, the world we live in, that is not a value that is built in anymore. It does not happen. We model that, that this is something that you can do. In some sense, Jessica, to give you a lot of credit, I think your podcasts are asking our listeners to do that regularly, to think about where they are in their relationships, what are the elements. You have all these wonderful guests that bring in so many different perspectives. But the whole process, as I experienced it, was to help all of us to think about what we're doing relationally with each other. That there's many different pathways, but it has to be attended to.

Thank you.

And I like your ability to bring in so many differences. You have a number of very different people coming on your podcast, and I think you modeled that ability to accept differences, curious about differences, in the very process of your podcast and your choice of guest.

Well, thank you. I'm humbled. I feel so privileged to spend this time with you. I know you train, and you are so just accomplished in your careers and all that you've done. So to hear that feedback means a lot, so thank you.

I'd like to add something else too, just very quickly. If you and other of the folks that are listening are familiar with the research out of the Harvard Longitudinal study on the good life, the emphasis has been, there is so much research now, that being one of the most robust longitudinal studies, that validates that at the end of the day, the thing that matters to us as humans is not going to be the position we made in the company. It's not going to be the amount of money we've amassed. It's going to be the way in which we feel we have related, the connections we have and how well they've survived. The research on that is solid. I think for me, that guides me. That is one of the things that holds me to continue to want to do this work, because of the importance of building something that's going to sustain for all of us. It's all of us. From the folks at the highest echelons, to us, people living ordinary lives.

Getting back to the idea of being curious, I think the very process of therapy is about being curious. The therapist with the couple, hopefully the couple being able to be curious about each other's feelings and thoughts, and for the difference in those feelings and thoughts to be okay and to be accepted.

I'm so glad you said that, Sondra. That was one of the things I was feeling in this bridge of just allowing differences, how people process differently, their different experiences, that that is made welcome when we have this curiosity that provides the bridge to feel connected even with the differences. That those differences can exist and don't need to be changed, that this is how we find connection and the value of this relating.

Oh, I'm privileged. Thank you so, so much. So for people who are listening who want to get your book, or also you had mentioned a video series, I would love to hear just anything you want to direct people towards.

Well, the series is based on interviews with 25 couples who've been together 25 or more years. Actually, they're about 50 couples, I'm sorry. But they've been together 25 years or more. The title of the site is Living Love That Lasts, and we can hopefully put that in print at some point. It's really a wonderful film. We encourage people to watch it, because these couples speak about how they make their relationships work and how they've extended over time, through lots of life quakes and lots of different experiences together. It's just beautiful to hear them talk about it.

Such a valuable learning. I'll make sure to put the link on today's show notes. And your book, Susan?

Well, our book is available on Amazon, and anybody that wants to either order the Kindle or the hard copy can do that.

The Rollercoaster of Emotions in Couples Therapy. It's available on Kindle and in paperback. We encourage you to look into it, purchase it.

Wonderful. Is there anything else you want to let people know about, any professional website? You don't have to. I'm just like, is there anything else you want people to know about?

The YouTube video of Living Love that Lasts is on my website. So if someone wants, it's SusanThauPhD.com. They can go on my website and they can click and see the video and read about the background on how it was created. It was created because it was a group, we did the interviews, and then as a large group, through our colleagues in EFT, created and produced this video for examples of how love can survive and endure and thrive.

And the film was a labor of love by all of us.

Yes, what a gift, and how much you're making a difference! Again, I'm so grateful for what you've shared here on today's episode, and the work you're doing and just what you're providing for us here. Not only for professionals, but also people navigating relationships. So thank you again.

Thank you, Jessica.

Thank you Jessica. Appreciate being here.