Hold Me Tight

Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

By: Sue Johnson

Narrated by: Helen Keeley

Strengthen and deepen your relationships with this "much-needed" (Harville Hendrix, PhD) guide that has sold over one million copies, through revelatory practical exercises, seven profound conversations, and sage advice from “the best couple’s therapist in the world” (John Gottman, PhD, bestselling author)

Are you looking to enrich a healthy relationship, revitalize a tired one, or rescue one gone awry? We all want a lifetime of love, support, and companionship. But sometimes we need a little help.

Enter Dr. Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy and “the most original contributor to couple’s therapy to come along in the last thirty years,” according to Dr. William J. Doherty, PhD. In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Johnson shares her groundbreaking and remarkably successful program for creating stronger, more secure relationships.

The message of Hold Me Tight is simple: Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, making grand romantic gestures, or experimenting with new sexual positions. Instead, get to the emotional underpinnings of your relationship by recognizing that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection. Dr. Johnson teaches that the way to enhance or save a relationship is to be open, attuned, and responsive to each other and to reestablish emotional connection. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship and uses them as touch points for seven healing conversations, including:

• Recognizing the Demon Dialogues
• Finding the Raw Spots
• Revisiting a Rocky Moment
• Forgiving Injuries
• Keeping Your Love Alive

These conversations give you insight into the defining moments in your relationship and guide you in reshaping these moments to create a secure and lasting bond.

Through stories from Dr. Johnson’s practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, you will learn how to nurture, protect, and grow your relationship, ensuring a lifetime of love.

Some good points

Getting out of a negative cycle is key for being able to productively speak with your spouse. Fascinating that the woman is the demanding aggressor in almost every example… It has definitely given me some tools to help get my wife to relax without actually telling her to “relax.”

My go-to book on relationships for non-monogamy

This book is helpful even if you’re already in a loving healthy relationship. Everyone experiences bumps along the way. I wish I had read this book years ago to smooth those bumps. I recommend this book to my fellow non-monogamous readers too, even though the author is skeptical of CNM (though that never comes up in this book). This book is a must-read for those of us who actively engage in multiple loving and caring relationships. Helping us hear the emotional and relational need of our partners is so key to building healthy trusting relationships, especially when we recognize insecurities as a normal response to relationship dynamics. Thank you Dr. Sue Johnson!

the book i needed

first few chapters i couldn’t get through without crying, but the more i listened the more hope i felt.

Key to marriage! Get after it!

Heard about this book 15 years ago, finally started listening to it on audible on my runs, amazing! I am a therapist that works with couples and will definitely be emphasizing EFT with couples therapy from now on. 😀

What I needed at this time in my life

This is what I needed. Be able to better understand my wife in this current time of my life. Thank you.