Created for Connection book review Support for Couples Counseling.
I highly recommend Created for Connection by Dr. Sue Johnson with Kenneth Sanderfer. Created for Connection is written for couples from a Christian worldview. Dr. Johnson also wrote Hold Me Tight. Both books were written to help everyday couples understand how to resolve the challenges of marital distress. She explains how emotional responsiveness is a part of a Christian’s bond with God and God’s covenant with humanity. This emotional responsiveness has three primary components accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement A.R.E. All relationships desire to understand where things are getting lost in translation. Most likely you are reading this because you want to improve the quality of your marital relationship to communicate better. I expect that you seek the steps to resolve the conflicts that seem to repeat in your life.
For those who desire to be in committed or covenant relationships, you want to be affirmed that you married the right partner and take it back to the Bible. You desire to be a Godly spouse. One chapter notes: “Emotional Responsiveness-the Key to a Lifetime of Love. “ It quotes the passion in Song of Songs 5:2. Scripture is key to grounding a Christian marriage. She compares our communication challenges to types of dances. A healthy dance is likened to a tango. Movement is responsive as partners gain awareness of their attunement into the slightest movement of their partner. The 7 conversations below were created by Dr. Johnson and express the workings of attachment and the dance of intimacy in marriage.
1. Recognizing the Demon Dialogues:
a: “Find the bad guy”: This dance is about self protection.
b. “Protest Polka” a “pursuit and protest.” This dance is used by all people in emotional connections: parents, children, siblings.
c. “Freeze and Flee”: Both partners are in withdraw-withdraw, numbness distance. No one is dancing anymore.
2. Finding the Raw Spots.
3. Revisiting a Rocky Moment
4. Hold Me Tight-engaging and Connecting
5. Forgiving Injuries
6. Bonding Through Sex and Touch
7. Keeping your Love Alive
The everyday examples in Created for Connection, offer relatable people with common crisis moments and questions. Christian marriage partners often think they have a good thing going. A woman offers a compliment and the couple gets into an argument, yelling in front of the counselor. What started as a compliment had turned into a war of words: disrespect, hurt, anger, sadness, and withdrawal. How did it happen? The distress cry of the partner is a protest against emotional disconnection.
For those men out there who believe that it is all just her nagging, her hormones. They may say “I have not cheated so what is the problem?” When one spouse feels despair each one needs to be heard and understood on an emotional level.
Dr. Johnson talks about “fear central” and specific parts of the brain that gets stuck when we are not connecting on an emotional level. The problem is that getting stuck in a relationship is not just that you feel like a car spinning its wheels in the mud. In emotional terms one partner may withdraw in silence and the other seeks them and it feels like nagging. Right? This is the dance. Dr. Johnson speaks to that “desperate fear of rejection as well as the loss that ends with withdrawal.’ “ Joseph LeDoux sums up our automatic responses in his words, “We don’t think; we feel, we act.” This is not a dry scientific read. The authors’ clever word pictures describe marriage interactions as dances.
Dr. Johnson also normalizes behaviors and emotions as rational. They have a function. “Partners acted like they were fighting for their lives in therapy because they were doing just that.” The 3 crucial questions for distressed couples: “Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Will you come when I call? In times of marital distress people feel vulnerable, and feel exposed. They feel they are asking their spouse for connection of their hearts and core values. Dr. Johnson defines relationships, “Oh, they’re emotional bonds…You can’t reason or bargain for love. It’s an emotional response.” When we connect we go to the deepest level of our being, because attachment bonds are wired into us.
Dr. Johnson gives wonderful witty labels to the emotional processes; in her 7 conversations and the A.R.E (accessibility, responsiveness, engagement) are aimed at the attachment challenge of the couple. As noted above are, “Demon Dialogues-a blame-distance loop,” “Find the bad guy”, “Protest Polka” and “Freeze and Flee.” Dr. Johnson teaches you to identify your “raw spots,” this is what good therapy is all about. Working through what did not go well that week and practicing in the session a new dance. Rather than repeating the blame-game it is as a couple seeing the triggers and working through them.
This book offers 7 conversations to encourage emotional responsiveness and the keys to lasting love for couples. I hope you will read Dr. Johnson’s Created for Connection this year. You may choose to buy the book or purchase as a CD, ideal for many busy couples today. My encouragement is for you not remain stuck. Talk to someone! Do it for you. Do it for your marriage. Do it for your children and a positive legacy.
Contact Gena Hepworth at Restore Grace Counseling. I offer a free consultation.