Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

This book would help most relationships. However, if you are in an abusive relationship this book will not help you. It may even make things worse as it will just open you up more to the abuser and give him more tools and ammo to use against you. I would recommend this book to couples in a non abusive relationship. I am glad I read this book(although I am in an abusive relationship). If you are in an abusive relationship do NOT read this with your partner and do not read this to improve your relationship with the abuser. Read it to better understand human relationships and improve over all communication with others. As I think this book can help with other relationships and not just marriage. I think every one would benefit from reading this. I also recommend reading: The Relationship Cure by John M Gottman and Joan De Claire Why Marriages Succeed or Fail by John M. Gottman If you are in abusive relationship I recommend reading: The Dance of Anger By Harriet Lerner Not to People like us By Susan Weitzan Why does he do that? By: Lundy Bancroft Codependent No More by Melody Beattie The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans 10 Lifesaving Principles for women in Difficult Relationships by Karla Downing Next Time, She’ll Be Dead by Ann Jones The New Codependency by Melody Beattie Better than boundaries Victory Over Verbal Abuse by Patricia Evans When Love Goes Wrong by Susan Schechter and Ann Jones Too Good for Her Own Good by Claudia Bepko and Jo Ann Krestan Controlling People by Patricia Evan The Emotionally Abused Woman by Beverly Engel The Verbally Abusive Man- Can He Change? By Patricia Evans It’s My Life Now by Megan Kennedy Dugan and Roger R. Hock Wounded by words by Jeenie Gordan, Karen Kosman, & Susan Osborn 2nd half going back to abuse may be dangerous Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them by Paul Hegstrom Sweet Suffering: Woman as Victim by Natalie Shainess Emotional Vampires by Albert J. Bernstein The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout The gift of fear by Gavin de Becker Emotional Blackmail by Susan forward, Donna Frazier & Susan Frazier Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love them by Susan Forward and Joan Torres

Truly a good book to keep by your night stand-Forever! I plan on reading mine often. To make sure I never forget the lessons. And renforce them. Really makes you understand the complexity of why we feel and do the things that we do.

I've been married 12 years, went to 6 months of pre-marital counseling, and a year of marriage counseling (basically didn't stop the pre-marital, just kept going). Even though we know all the "right" things to do, we have been plagued throughout our marriage. We both wanted to have a better marriage, but felt like all we would be told by counseling is "more of the same." A friend recommended this book (and I've read a lot!) and it was so different than anything else! It made so much sense and has been our missing link. Last week we made love for the first time in 3.5 years and we're not even done reading! As she describes in the book, we were so far beyond and to the point of no hope -- a couple that no longer made any sort of physical contact in any way, not even casual, and we were beyond the "protest polka" and well into freeze & flee. We had been both shut down for years, living like roommates, and on the verge of divorcing just to make the loveless pain stop. If this book can make us, of all people, come back from the edge, it could rescue you too. I think this book should be standard issue to any engaged couple. Not only does it have the tools to heal a broken marriage, but it can make a good marriage BETTER and rock solid!

Touching, helpful, heart-warming and practical, Dr. Johnson has at last put words to the latest research into happy marriages for the average person. Reading it is not intellectual: each time I pick up this book I feel like I could not only understand my spouse's behavior in a deeper way, but also my own. I can't recommend this book enough. I read the first few chapters, bought three more copies (one for my spouse), and gave the other two to friends who were in stressful moments with their own spouses. One couple now reads from the book to one another each night, and (like I did) recommended it to two other couples before they got through the first 3 chapters. The other couple bought a 2nd copy so that they could each have it available to them every day, and are now each avidly reading on their morning commutes. In short, readers seem to find Dr. Johnson's book incredibly helpful, almost immediately. Dr. Johnson's clear, from-the-heart style seems immediately comprehensible to anyone who has ever been in love, or wanted to be. And rest of the book was even better than the beginning. You know you've got a winner when you give a book to two friends, who each immediately give it to their two friends, and so on. Don't suffer needlessly: give this one a try for under $20!

There is no end to the relationship books out there, but this one is definitely different. Dr. Johnson gives us the science behind the feeling and then helps us unravel how we get stuck in aloneness and fear. Being in a loving relationship should not feel so separate. Our fast paced,independent and competitive based society leads us into developing entitlement that heightens our sense of being hurt and abandoned. Then self-perpetuating interlocking loops of pursue and defend; demand and withdraw separate us even more from the one we long to feel safe and close to. Thank you Sue Johnson, for publishing the map that guides us through this maze of confused emotions. Thank you from all my clients, my family and myself. Each of my married children have received gifts of this book. I keep mine close at hand. My husband thanks you, too. T. Livingston. MFT

Hold Me Tight teaches couples how to hear their partner's deepest concerns, "are you there for me", "am I really important to you", "is our relationship secure and solid" when those concerns are expressed through criticism or content. It reminds partner's that all communications are attempts to connect, no matter how badly delivered. In this way, Susan Johnson teaches couples to read below the surface of a complaint down to the attachment need being expressed underneath. When attachment needs can be faced and processed directly, couples feel closer. Johnson offers couples in couples counseling an adjunctive support system in addition to the therapy hour. Hold Me Tight is also an excellent resource for couples working things out on their own. It provides a clear and solid guideline for repairing hurt and restoring connection. I am recommending it to the couples in my practice, and the reports coming back about how helpful and transformative Johnson's approach is have been glowing!

I've read all the relationship books, even the ones by the authors whose quotes appear on this cover, and I can say with complete conviction that this is by far the best of the lot. Dr. Sue Johnson's warm, authoritative, and reassuring tone sets the stage for a whole lot of incredibly useful advice. The book gives you a new way to view your relationship and the tools to improve it, whether it needs improving or not! Her form of couples therapy is apparently one of the very few to be proven to work, and that's really the bottom line. Do yourself and your partner a big favor and buy this book! I highly recommend it.