Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

No matter how passionate and enrapturing the initial romantic connection, love in a relationship is doomed to fizzle out over time, right? Clinical psychologist Sue Johnson strongly disagrees. After making little headway working with distressed couples through rational problem solving or exploring early childhood, Johnson developed Emotions Focused Therapy (EFT), an approach that helps couples discover the vulnerable emotions that roil beneath routine conflicts and misunderstandings. In Hold Me Tight, Johnson argues that responsiveness to our partner’s deep, attachment-based emotions is the secret to lifelong love. She encourages lovers to have a number of conversations, on topics such as their particular dances of dysfunction, their core wounds, their deepest fears and needs, and sex. What follows are some of those conversations.