John Gottman's Horsemen CONTEMPT (Relationship Advice)

The famous relationship researcher John Gottman describes contempt as sulphuric acid for love as its so destructive to your relationship. In this video I will discuss John Gottman's Horsemen, contempt, and share scientifically researched ways to put an end to it.

🔵 CHAPTERS

0:00 Exploration of contempt with examples
2:27 Antidote to contempt

🔵 WORK WITH ME

If you'd like to work with me, or a member of the Lewis Psychology team, please click on the links below:

🔵 What differentiates contempt from criticism is the intention to insult and psychologically abuse your partner. You call them names, throw insults and use body language such as eye-rolling and sneering. You will also hear phrases such as 'You're stupid', 'you're disgusting' and 'you're an idiot'. You might also hear hostile humour, mockery and ridicule as you throw insults into the heart of your partners sense of self. Basically it you show contempt you are saying 'I'm better than you and you are less than me'.

Research has shown that if you are in a contemptuous relationship you are more likely to suffer physical from infections such as a cold or flu. It also effects your mental health and as you're more likely to be depressed or anxious. Contempt not only destroys your relationship it destroys your psychological and physical health too.

Dr John Gottman who is an American psychological researcher and therapist is known for his extensive research on relationship analysis. He can actually predict the end of a relationship with over 90% accuracy. According to Gottman, contempt is the single greatest predictor of a relationship breakdown.Gottman's research states that negative communication patterns fall under four key categories: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. He calls these negative communication patterns the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The good news is that John Gottman provided proven antidotes for each of the four horsemen. As we are focussing on the second horsemen in this video, the antidote for contempt is to build a culture of appreciation and respect. First you want to stop seeing arguments as a way to retaliate or gain the upper ground. Next express appreciation, affection and respect for your partner. Gottman discovered the magic ratio of 5:1, if you have five or more positive interactions for every one negative interaction you are making regular deposits into your relationship bank.

🔵 JOHN GOTTMAN'S FOUR HORSEMEN VIDEOS

If you are interested in finding out about the other horsemen please click the links below:

🔵 ABOUT TERESA LEWIS

Teresa Lewis is the founder and Director of Lewis Psychology and a Senior Accredited psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP Snr. Accred). Qualified in 1995, Teresa has been providing counselling and psychotherapy treatment for nearly 30 years. Teresa holds a masters degree in counselling and psychotherapy and is a qualified EMDR Practitioner having completed training accredited with EMDR Europe. Teresa is also a qualified adult educator and an accredited Mindfulness teacher As a recognised expert in her field Teresa is frequently asked to conduct editorial reviews and endorse counselling and psychotherapy books for international publishing houses.

🔵 GRAPHICS AND THUMBNAIL

#LewisPsychology

[kimmarieburt]

I definitely have a tendency toward contempt so I have certain boundaries for myself like no blaming, name calling, no sarcasm during fights and use I statements, but it takes more. Contempt can still be communicated subtly with body language and even exasperated breaths. What helps me is noticing when I want to say something mean and admitting that I’m not safe to be around. Getting some space, calming down and telling myself things that address my feelings of superiority like “he deserves respect”, “we don’t have to think the same way”, “if he feels attacked he won’t be able to hear my important points”.
The change has to occur at the level of attitude not behavior.

[HaruKomorebi]

I was just doing some shadow work and start having a conversation in my head to work through an interaction with someone who used the DARVO technique on me as well as contempt when I held him accountable. I get an implied "beggars can't be choosers" and "get over it" from his way of responding to me (a feeling of dismissal from his way of saying "I do not wish to reanalyze this" and "hopefully we can put this to rest"; and "you want things to be an exact way" when definitions and whether we're doing something or not matters). I ended up feeling like the bad guy after this interaction (shaming). I'm out of a freeze now and I'm seeing his morally wrong behaviors... I'm observing the imagined interaction and working through the unexpressed feelings and realize I'm mirroring it back in my head. One of those moments of transcendence there :o

[adamthompson]

I find that both my partner and I fall into contempt during conflict ( I eyeroll and audibly sigh and she mocks what i say or how i sit) . I also exhibit signs of stonewalling and eventually dissociate from my feelings entirely which is distressing for her (understandably so). I don't really know how to stop this as we have talked about it in calmer times and written a chart down to show where we need to break off from conflict but this often isnt followed and if i suggest we do so, the mockery about it increases so i feel trapped in place and more likely to switch off. I feel a lot of our conflicts escalate quickly because I get so defensive when i notice / hear annoyance and sometimes there doesn't even need to be words spoken for me to go into survival mode.

[hi_im_angie]

How do you stop yourself from feeling contempt if that's a long-term habit? I've inherited contempt for men from my mother.

[WileyFox]

I learn a lot about others and myself from your posts so thank you, however, the world needs to stop taking the mickey out of Kevins as apart from changing our names by deed poll there's not much to be done. Kevins have suffered 60 years of abuse anecdotally, as a child all I heard was Kevin Keegan, then Kevin the Grebil, Kevin from Kevin and Perry and now we're the subject of failing relationships and psycological problems ; )

[teerex]

This was rubbish, i could hav done much better. I wish I haven’t watched this….joke about contempt. Great video, thanks…