Gottman Method as an Integration within the ShiftGrit Core Method™
Overview
The Gottman Method is a structured, research-based approach to couples therapy organized around the Sound Relationship House theory, a model that describes the components of a stable, satisfying partnership. It aims to strengthen friendship and intimacy, manage conflict more constructively, and help partners support each other's goals and sense of shared meaning.
How it works
Treatment typically begins with a structured assessment of the relationship, after which the therapist targets specific areas using interventions mapped to the Sound Relationship House, such as building "love maps," nurturing fondness and admiration, and turning toward bids for connection. Couples are taught skills to dampen the corrosive interaction patterns the Gottmans identified through observational research, including criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and to repair conflict and regulate emotional and physiological escalation during disagreements.
What it is used for
It is used primarily with couples seeking to improve relationship satisfaction, communication, and conflict management, and has been applied to concerns such as recurring conflict, emotional distance, and recovery after infidelity. It has also been studied and adapted for same-sex couples and for delivery through psychoeducational programs in addition to in-office therapy.
Origins and evidence base
The method was developed by psychologist John Gottman and clinical psychologist Julie Schwartz Gottman, drawing on several decades of Gottman's observational and longitudinal research on couples, much of it conducted in a laboratory apartment setting at the University of Washington. Its empirical base includes longitudinal studies of relationship stability and a smaller but growing body of outcome research, including randomized controlled trials, such as work on the Trust Revival Method for affair recovery, reporting improvements in relationship satisfaction and conflict management.
Within the ShiftGrit Core Method™
Many couples arrive hoping that one set of techniques will smooth things over and put the relationship back on track. We see couples work a little differently. The Gottman Method is a couples approach our clinicians may use as the couples therapy itself, a structured way of working with what happens between two partners rather than inside one. Where the ShiftGrit Core Method™ is our individual work, helping one person understand their patterns through Pattern Theory™ and ease the limiting belief that sits underneath, couples therapy asks a different question, so it calls for an approach built for two people in the room together.
There are two ways our clinicians tend to bring couples support into the picture. Sometimes a couples approach like this one is the work a pair does together from the start. Other times each partner first does their own individual pattern work (with a different ShiftGrit therapist, separate from and outside the couples sessions, so the couples therapist is not the same person who does each partner's individual work), easing a belief such as "I am not good enough" that quietly shapes how they show up, and then the partners come back together to build on steadier ground. In either path, the Gottman Method gives our clinicians a clear way to look at the relationship as its own thing.
Its strength is that it focuses on the space between two people. Our clinicians can notice how one partner's reaction lands as a sting for the other, and how two separate sensitivities start feeding each other in a loop that neither partner intended. It also brings practical relationship skills, like calmer ways to open a hard conversation, ways to repair after a fight, and ways to settle yourself when things heat up, which help a couple hold their new footing between sessions. We draw on it to support real, lasting change in how two partners connect.
Illustrative example
A couple comes in caught in fights that keep escalating: one partner pushes with criticism, the other shuts down and goes quiet. Looking underneath, our clinicians might find one partner carrying the belief "I am inadequate," so a moment of distance feels like a threat and triggers the criticism, while the other partner's quiet withdrawal then reads as proof of that same belief. The Gottman skills help the couple slow the cycle down between sessions, while the lasting change comes from reconditioning the belief underneath so a small bump no longer feels like a threat.
Based on: Gottman JM, Levenson RW. Rebound from marital conflict and divorce prediction. Family Process. 1999;38(3):287-292. DOI: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1999.00287.x (PMID: 10526766). [source]
Clinicians who integrate Gottman Method
Couples therapy at ShiftGrit
The ShiftGrit Core Method™ is an individual therapy. For couples, our clinicians work with established couples approaches like Gottman Method, or do focused individual pattern work with each partner before bringing them back together. Our couples therapists:
If Gottman Method is specifically what you are looking for, tell us during matching and we will pair you with a clinician who carries that training. See how we integrate evidence-based modalities within the ShiftGrit Core Method™.
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Find Your PatternTrusted by Leading Psychology & Mental Health Organizations Across Canada
ShiftGrit Psychology & Counselling is professionally regulated, certified, and recognized by leading psychology and mental-health organizations across Canada. These associations reflect our commitment to ethical practice, clinical standards, and evidence-informed therapy through Identity-Level Therapy and Reconditioning.
Trusted By Alberta’s Leading Psychology & Mental Health Organizations
ShiftGrit Psychology & Counselling is professionally regulated, certified, and recognized by leading psychology and mental-health organizations across Alberta and Canada. These associations reflect our commitment to ethical practice, clinical standards, and evidence-informed therapy through Identity-Level Therapy and Reconditioning.
Regulated and affiliated across Alberta’s leading psychology, counselling, and mental-health organizations.
Regulated and affiliated across Canada’s leading psychology, counselling, and mental-health organizations.
The descriptions and examples on this page are provided for general educational and illustrative purposes only. They explain how this approach may be integrated within the ShiftGrit Core Method™ and do not describe a specific client, represent a testimonial, or promise any particular result. Integrated modalities are offered at the discretion of individual clinicians, and whether any approach is appropriate for you is determined together with your clinician, within their professional judgement and scope of practice.
