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Alright. Let's start with some background information. I am not married, but I am in a long term, committed relationship of several years. I'm a graduate student studying to become a mental health care provider, and I read this book for a course on marital/couples therapy. I therefore went into this book from the perspective of a therapist-in-training, but with my own relationship experiences in the wings to color my perspective. For this reason I know that I am NOT the target audience, and so I don't think it's fair for me to give an actual rating here. I will however share my thoughts.
Gottman presents a number of solid concepts that are worth taking to heart when building a healthy, functional, and sustainable partnership. That said, I took a lot of issue with the manner in which much of this information is presented. The man is clearly an expert in his field, and the amount of hard data he and his colleagues have amassed over decades of research is impressive. That said, we get very little of that data to bite into ourselves here. We get mentions of statistics and general overviews of some of his findings, but it's comparatively little and it's very much packaged and presented in support of his ideas, rather than giving us the data and then walking us through his logical inferences based on the findings. Presumably this data is all published somewhere in scholarly journals, formal research findings, etc. Why aren't we directed to any of that content, or given some basics to look through in an appendix? Instead the only suggestions for further reading we get are marketed toward the other books he's written which, again, are very much marketed as self-help style works rather an unfiltered sharing of research findings. I'm clearly coming at this from the perspective of a student who's used to working with textbooks, but I struggle with being told, "these are the facts, I am the expert, here's what you should do," without the benefit of the actual data those facts are being pulled from. (Seriously, just give me some tables with statistics and research findings in the back. Is that too much to ask?)
I also took issue with several instances in which Gottman does offer facts or statistics, but presents them and his extrapolated conclusions as proof of causation where acknowledging and discussing correlation would be much more appropriate, I think. That, and it feels like some data has been forced into a particular context to support his argument. Sure, the average couple works 1000 hours more per year today than they did 30 years ago. (Where did he get that statistic, by the way? See previous paragraph.) But are we taking into account the rise in two-income households in that same time span? Yes, I think that the 9-5 work day has expanded exponentially in recent years and of course that impacts our relationships. But that particular statistic has a lot more social context that needs to be considered before tossing it in to support the picture he's trying to paint.
Again, I acknowledge that I am not the target demographic here. I was reading this book as a mental and relationship health practitioner in training, rather than someone off the street who wants to know how to make my relationship succeed (though, let's be honest, who isn't open to picking up some ideas?). But Gottman very much couches himself as the end-all, be-all expert in this book, and I think that's a dangerous position to take when packaging his material the way that he does.
This isn't to say that I don't value the work and ideas presented here. Again, there are some excellent concepts here, and I'm absolutely sure that I'll implement some of his strategies and exercises with clients one day. But most likely I will boil the ideas down into their basic elements, and/or suggest specific page numbers or exercises to draw from without some of the questionable commentary. This book and it's elements are valuable tools for people in a committed partnership. But like everything, they should be taken with a grain of salt--and with clear understanding of Gottman's focus on self-marketing.
Gottman presents a number of solid concepts that are worth taking to heart when building a healthy, functional, and sustainable partnership. That said, I took a lot of issue with the manner in which much of this information is presented. The man is clearly an expert in his field, and the amount of hard data he and his colleagues have amassed over decades of research is impressive. That said, we get very little of that data to bite into ourselves here. We get mentions of statistics and general overviews of some of his findings, but it's comparatively little and it's very much packaged and presented in support of his ideas, rather than giving us the data and then walking us through his logical inferences based on the findings. Presumably this data is all published somewhere in scholarly journals, formal research findings, etc. Why aren't we directed to any of that content, or given some basics to look through in an appendix? Instead the only suggestions for further reading we get are marketed toward the other books he's written which, again, are very much marketed as self-help style works rather an unfiltered sharing of research findings. I'm clearly coming at this from the perspective of a student who's used to working with textbooks, but I struggle with being told, "these are the facts, I am the expert, here's what you should do," without the benefit of the actual data those facts are being pulled from. (Seriously, just give me some tables with statistics and research findings in the back. Is that too much to ask?)
I also took issue with several instances in which Gottman does offer facts or statistics, but presents them and his extrapolated conclusions as proof of causation where acknowledging and discussing correlation would be much more appropriate, I think. That, and it feels like some data has been forced into a particular context to support his argument. Sure, the average couple works 1000 hours more per year today than they did 30 years ago. (Where did he get that statistic, by the way? See previous paragraph.) But are we taking into account the rise in two-income households in that same time span? Yes, I think that the 9-5 work day has expanded exponentially in recent years and of course that impacts our relationships. But that particular statistic has a lot more social context that needs to be considered before tossing it in to support the picture he's trying to paint.
Again, I acknowledge that I am not the target demographic here. I was reading this book as a mental and relationship health practitioner in training, rather than someone off the street who wants to know how to make my relationship succeed (though, let's be honest, who isn't open to picking up some ideas?). But Gottman very much couches himself as the end-all, be-all expert in this book, and I think that's a dangerous position to take when packaging his material the way that he does.
This isn't to say that I don't value the work and ideas presented here. Again, there are some excellent concepts here, and I'm absolutely sure that I'll implement some of his strategies and exercises with clients one day. But most likely I will boil the ideas down into their basic elements, and/or suggest specific page numbers or exercises to draw from without some of the questionable commentary. This book and it's elements are valuable tools for people in a committed partnership. But like everything, they should be taken with a grain of salt--and with clear understanding of Gottman's focus on self-marketing.