Evaluation of a successful marriage through various theories is the focus of this paper consisting of ten pages with Professor John Gottman's components of a successful marriage the primary focus of discussion. Seven sources are cited in the bibliography.
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the Gottman Institute is one of the more popular researchers on success in marriages today. Gottman and his colleagues address situations which are prevalent in todays couples such as lack
of time for one another and defensive and critical strategies during communication. While Gottman realizes that different components of communication such as effective listening, listening non-defensively and editing while speaking
are important, other more emotionally intelligent components are also important such as respect, admiration, influence, acceptance, and accepting and coping with conflict are equally important. Theories of marital therapy include
many of Gottmans components while at the same time, some researchers have added other useful strategies such as exploring new interests together and maintaining a sense of humor and realistic
scope among others. Theories for Success and Failure of Marriages John Gottmans works which include "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail" (1994) and "The
Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" (1999) among others are often considered contrary to the traditional relationship books which focus on communication as the key for successful marriages. Gottman quite
adamantly disagrees with this ideal in that he believes "theres much more to a solid, emotionally intelligent marriage than sharing every feeling and thought, he points out - though most
couples therapists ineffectively (and expensively) harp on these concepts" (Gottman and Silver, 1999). Gottman is the director of the Gottman Institute where he studies hundreds of couples in his
"love lab" and claims that he can predict within the first five minutes of meeting a couple, with 91 percent accuracy, which ones are destined for divorce and which ones
are not. Gottman believes there are obvious signs within marriages that even the most uneducated in the field could recognize, as he refers to one client who could not remember