{"id":6955,"date":"2024-05-28T23:00:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T23:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2024-05-28T23:23:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T23:23:35","slug":"sue-johnson-psychologist-who-took-a-scientific-view-of-love-dies-at-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=6955","title":{"rendered":"Sue Johnson, Psychologist Who Took a Scientific View of Love, Dies at 76"},"content":{"rendered":"
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She believed the bond between adults was as sustaining as that between parent and child, and developed a therapy to strengthen and repair broken relationships.<\/p>\n

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Sue Johnson, a British-born Canadian clinical psychologist and best-selling author who developed a novel method of couples therapy based on emotional attachment, challenging what had been the dominant behavioral approach \u2014 the idea that behaviors are learned and thus can be changed \u2014 died on April 23 in Victoria, British Columbia. She was 76.<\/p>\n

Her death, in a hospital, was caused by a rare form of melanoma, said her husband, John Douglas.<\/p>\n

When divorce rates rose in the 1970s, couples therapy blossomed. Drawing from traditional psychotherapy practices, therapists focused mostly on helping distressed couples communicate more effectively, delve into their upbringings and \u201cnegotiate and bargain,\u201d as Dr. Johnson put it, over divisive issues like parenting, sex and household chores.<\/p>\n

In her own practice, however, she became frustrated at how her couples seemed to be stalling out.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy couples didn\u2019t care about insight into their childhood relationships,\u201d she wrote in her book \u201cHold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love\u201d (2008), which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 30 languages. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to be reasonable and learn to negotiate. They certainly didn\u2019t want to be taught rules for fighting effectively. Love, it seemed, was all about nonnegotiables. You can\u2019t bargain for compassion, for connection. These are not intellectual reactions; they are emotional responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

In conventional therapy that sought to modify behavior, emotions had long been dismissed as problematic in dealing with marital issues \u2014 something to be tamed \u2014 and dependence on a loved one was seen as a sign of dysfunction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Johnson thought otherwise. She knew of the attachment studies of John Bowlby<\/a>, the British psychiatrist who studied children who had been traumatized by being orphaned or separated from their parents during World War II. Later researchers began to focus on adult attachments and noted how secure connections among couples helped them weather the inevitable storms of relationships.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Johnson\u2019s 2008 book has sold more than million copies and been translated into 30 languages. <\/span>Little, Brown Spark<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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She believed the bond between adults was as sustaining as that between parent and child, and developed a therapy to strengthen and repair broken relationships.Sue Johnson, a British-born Canadian clinical psychologist and best-selling author who developed a novel method of couples therapy based on emotional attachment, challenging what had been the dominant behavioral approach \u2014 the idea that behaviors are learned and thus can be changed \u2014 died on April 23 in Victoria, British Columbia. She was 76.Her death, in a hospital, was caused by a rare form of melanoma, said her husband, John Douglas.When divorce rates rose in the 1970s, couples therapy blossomed. Drawing from traditional psychotherapy practices, therapists focused mostly on helping distressed couples communicate more effectively, delve into their upbringings and \u201cnegotiate and bargain,\u201d as Dr. Johnson put it, over divisive issues like parenting, sex and household chores.In her own practice, however, she became frustrated at how her couples seemed to be stalling out.\u201cMy couples didn\u2019t care about insight into their childhood relationships,\u201d she wrote in her book \u201cHold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love\u201d (2008), which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 30 languages. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to be reasonable and learn to negotiate. They certainly didn\u2019t want to be taught rules for fighting effectively. Love, it seemed, was all about nonnegotiables. You can\u2019t bargain for compassion, for connection. These are not intellectual reactions; they are emotional responses.\u201dIn conventional therapy that sought to modify behavior, emotions had long been dismissed as problematic in dealing with marital issues \u2014 something to be tamed \u2014 and dependence on a loved one was seen as a sign of dysfunction.Dr. Johnson thought otherwise. She knew of the attachment studies of John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist who studied children who had been traumatized by being orphaned or separated from their parents during World War II. Later researchers began to focus on adult attachments and noted how secure connections among couples helped them weather the inevitable storms of relationships.Dr. Johnson\u2019s 2008 book has sold more than million copies and been translated into 30 languages. Little, Brown SparkWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6957,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6958,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions\/6958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}