I am wondering if anyone has heard of Sue Johnson and/or read her book "Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love "
Her book can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Hold-Me-Tight-Conversations-Lifetime/dp/031611300X
Article posted IAW appropriate provision of Copyright Act
Ottawa Citizen Article: Troubles on the Home Front (Excerpt)
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=d36c700c-a8fb-4bc1-9c53-5dc77a19f5da&k=96750
Shelley Page, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Sunday, May 04, 2008
Some soldiers come home from battle with war in their heads and numbness in their hearts. They can't escape the death they've witnessed -- or caused -- or the nagging uneasiness that comes from fighting in a land with no front or back lines.
The bridge from war back to love is impossible for many to cross. They must shut off their "battle brains" in order to hug their children and hold their wives. Relationships falter. At greatest risk are marriages that endure multiple deployments.
In a bid to support these fragile relationships, the U.S. army has called in Ottawa-based therapist Sue Johnson. Last weekend, the University of Ottawa professor was in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to run the fourth of five retreats for military couples using Emotionally Focused Therapy. Dr. Johnson developed the program when she was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia and then refined it here in Ottawa as director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute. Now it's used around the world by marital therapists. About 200 couples will go through the military's pilot program.Dr. Johnson's work has achieved a 75 per cent success rate in several studies. By comparison, other forms of couple therapy have been shown to be about 35 per cent effective. While Dr. Johnson has discussed her therapy with the military chaplains in this country, she has not provided similar support to Canadian troops.
The clinical psychologist describes her work in Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (Little, Brown). The new book was not written for a military audience, though it was distributed to the Fort Leavenworth couples.
"I want my kids to read this book before they fall in love," she said from her Ottawa home before heading to Kansas.
Dr. Johnson grew up in Britain, where her father, a former navy commando, ran a pub in which her mother served as a barmaid. She spent her youth watching people meet, talk, drink, brawl, dance and flirt.
"But the focal point of my young life was my parents' marriage. I watched helplessly as they destroyed their marriage and themselves," she writes.
"Still, I knew they loved each other deeply. In my father's last days, he wept raw tears for my mother, although they had been separated for more than 20 years."
At first she vowed to never get married (she did). Then she decided to devote her life's work to understanding the emotional dance between partners.
Dr. Johnson does not teach couples how to argue better, nor does she advise them to make grand romantic gestures or experiment with new sexual positions. Instead, she works to put them in touch with the emotional underpinnings of their relationship. She wants them to recognize that just as a child needs a parent, adults depend on a partner for nurturing, soothing and protection. It's crucial, she says, to have someone to lean on.
All this is contrary to the way many men are raised. "We tell them to be the John Wayne type. Cool, unemotional, aloof." This is especially true in "macho" professions, where men erect "a wall" to hide their vulnerabilities.
... (More at link)
Her book can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Hold-Me-Tight-Conversations-Lifetime/dp/031611300X
Article posted IAW appropriate provision of Copyright Act
Ottawa Citizen Article: Troubles on the Home Front (Excerpt)
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=d36c700c-a8fb-4bc1-9c53-5dc77a19f5da&k=96750
Shelley Page, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Sunday, May 04, 2008
Some soldiers come home from battle with war in their heads and numbness in their hearts. They can't escape the death they've witnessed -- or caused -- or the nagging uneasiness that comes from fighting in a land with no front or back lines.
The bridge from war back to love is impossible for many to cross. They must shut off their "battle brains" in order to hug their children and hold their wives. Relationships falter. At greatest risk are marriages that endure multiple deployments.
In a bid to support these fragile relationships, the U.S. army has called in Ottawa-based therapist Sue Johnson. Last weekend, the University of Ottawa professor was in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to run the fourth of five retreats for military couples using Emotionally Focused Therapy. Dr. Johnson developed the program when she was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia and then refined it here in Ottawa as director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute. Now it's used around the world by marital therapists. About 200 couples will go through the military's pilot program.Dr. Johnson's work has achieved a 75 per cent success rate in several studies. By comparison, other forms of couple therapy have been shown to be about 35 per cent effective. While Dr. Johnson has discussed her therapy with the military chaplains in this country, she has not provided similar support to Canadian troops.
The clinical psychologist describes her work in Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (Little, Brown). The new book was not written for a military audience, though it was distributed to the Fort Leavenworth couples.
"I want my kids to read this book before they fall in love," she said from her Ottawa home before heading to Kansas.
Dr. Johnson grew up in Britain, where her father, a former navy commando, ran a pub in which her mother served as a barmaid. She spent her youth watching people meet, talk, drink, brawl, dance and flirt.
"But the focal point of my young life was my parents' marriage. I watched helplessly as they destroyed their marriage and themselves," she writes.
"Still, I knew they loved each other deeply. In my father's last days, he wept raw tears for my mother, although they had been separated for more than 20 years."
At first she vowed to never get married (she did). Then she decided to devote her life's work to understanding the emotional dance between partners.
Dr. Johnson does not teach couples how to argue better, nor does she advise them to make grand romantic gestures or experiment with new sexual positions. Instead, she works to put them in touch with the emotional underpinnings of their relationship. She wants them to recognize that just as a child needs a parent, adults depend on a partner for nurturing, soothing and protection. It's crucial, she says, to have someone to lean on.
All this is contrary to the way many men are raised. "We tell them to be the John Wayne type. Cool, unemotional, aloof." This is especially true in "macho" professions, where men erect "a wall" to hide their vulnerabilities.
... (More at link)
