Title: Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
Author: Dr. Sue Johnson
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Publication Date: April 2008
ISBN: 9780316113007
Synopsis:
This idea, once controversial, is now supported by science, and has become widely popular among therapists around the world. In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from “Recognizing the Demon Dialogue” to “Revisiting a Rocky Moment” — and uses them as touch points for seven healing conversations. Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.
Hold Me Tight is an incredibly interesting review of how couples can navigate their way through the process to connect emotionally and deepened or improve their bond through expression of our deepest needs. Working through the narration of a series of working experience with various couples through her career, Dr. Johnson explores her findings of the adult need to be shown love and vulnerability in much the same way as a parent might convey unconditional love and support for a child. Each chapter ends with conversation starters and exercises that couples can work through together the spark conversations and connect on a deep and emotional level to strengthen the bonds of their relationship and offer their partner both an understanding of their personal needs, as well as an understanding of how best to connect and support their partner’s needs.
Through seven different conversations, Dr. Johnson addresses the greatest threats to a relationship and how to overcome them, how to acknowledge and break out of these negative tendencies, and how to take the romantic and familial bond to the next level through expression of vulnerability. Through open communication and active discussion, Hold Me Tight introduces a method strengthen connection and sparking further discussion. It truly highlights how toxic some relationships can become when respect and communication break down, but offers a glimmer of hope to those couples who have lost their way and truly seek to find a way back.
I found this book to be very thought provoking. I’ve rated it 4 stars for the purpose that I found the seven conversations to be engaging and interesting, but the final chapters to be unnecessary and to distract from the overall powerful message that the rest of the book works so hard to convey.
Happy reading!
Worn Pages and Ink 