Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships

Love Sense is a persuasive and visionary book in which Dr Sue Johnson challenges the predominant cultural paradigm that humans need to be autonomous and independent. Brain research, says Dr Johnson, tells us quite the opposite. Secure bonds between partners, parents and children produce happier, more, confident, better-performing people.Dr Johnson cites significant research on the effects of establishing secure connections. My favorites include the research on couples who have participated in Emotionally Focused Therapy by Dr Jim Coan of UVA, whose work has recently been cited by Forbes Magazine as #2 in the Top Ten of Research Studies in the U.S. last year. In fMRI tests, Dr Coan found that regions of subjects’ brains light up as vividly when friends and partners are threatened as they do when their own safety was in danger, evidence of the close connections between the partner and friends.Over and over again, Dr Johnson cites studies that indicate that securely bonded adults and children are healthier and perform better at work, in academics and in sports. In some studies, participants were urged to think of someone who cared about them, then tested in subsequent performances. Their outcomes were consistently better. This was touchingly illustrated in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning on January 26, 2014, about a remarkable win by the Bishop McGinnis High School Boys Basketball Team of Greensboro, NC. Coach Josh Thompson asked the boys to write the names of someone to whom they dedicated their performance. Most boys wrote the names of family members, but Spencer Wilson wrote the name of his best friend, Josh Rominger, who had died nine months earlier. Both boys had cancer, but Spencer survived. After signing the basketball, Spencer wrote Josh’ mother Deena to say that he thought about Josh every day and that he was dedicating this game to Josh. At the end of the game, Bishop McGinnis was behind one point. The other team had the ball, but failed to score. Spencer grabbed the ball and threw a long Hail Mary pass most of the length of the court to win the game. The CBS reporter ended by saying that most of the people with whom he spoke called the ending a miracle and added that Josh helped his friend sink the winning ball. After reading Love Sense and without taking anything away from Spencer, his dedication to the memory of his friend, and his stunning performance, I like also to think that the coach’s urging the team to focus on those whom they cared about (and with whom they likely had secure bonds) enabled the team to play confidently and expertly.As part of her vision of a world made better through secure bonds and connection, Dr Johnson describes an intriguing report about a program Roots of Empathy conducted with 450,00 children in Canada and Australia. Over 12 years of follow-up research indicates that “Nasty behavior dropped 61 percent in ROE children (compared with an increase of 67 percent in youngsters who weren’t in the program).” (p.284, Kindle version). These outcomes correspond with my own experience using Flowers for Algernon and the movie Charley with high school students who were mocking Special Education students in an English class as they got on the school bus. After reading and learning more about disabled people, these students noticed the other children getting on the bus, then turned back to their schoolwork.I want to conclude by sharing remarkable moments from a professional discussion about Love Sense. Of the therapists attending, many practice Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, developed as a result of Dr Johnson’s own theories and research. In the discussion, appreciation was expressed for the amount of research cited in Love Sense, perhaps 1000 studies and the bibliography--26 pages in the paperback. One therapist shared how much she and her husband benefited from Emotionally Focused Therapy. Then other therapists began to share what it is like to sit in session with couples who have found different ways to talk about the negative cycles that have caused so much heartache in their relationships. As they talked, therapists around the room could be seen smiling and nodding. As I was, perhaps they were thinking about the changes they have seen in their couples when using EFT. The atmosphere in the room softened and deepened. No longer did it seem to be a formal academic discussion but more like the connection that many parents and grandparents experience when sharing the joys of a baby’s first words or a toddler’s first steps. A woman across the room observed that using EFT is like “what’s happening in this room right now.” There was a pause and silence. The energy shifted. It had been a good evening—connecting and re-connecting. It was time to go home.Living in the "Brave New World" offered by "Love Sense" would be appealing and joyful. This book is a great read for anyone who wants a better relationship or who wants to help people have better relationships.Charlie Ruff, LMFT

Sue Johnson's perspective on relationship dynamics is core to our current scientific understanding of love. She writes well and persuasively makes her point that the need for bonding comes from deep instinctual roots, and when our bond with our beloved is threatened we respond typically with either a fight or flight response.This is probably the most useful book I can recommend to my clients to help them understand the basic dynamics of loving relationships. This, and Dr. Johnson's previous book, - Seven Conversations - which is extremely helpful for couples who are working through distress. These two books are essential reading to anyone who wants to understand how love works and what often makes it go sour. Still, both these books can be difficult for the layperson to follow in places; and somewhat frustrating for the practitioner/scientist who wants really clear links to the research base she claims to depend on for her many assertions.The book has a set of references for each chapter, but these are unfortunately for the entire chapter and are difficult to link with the many individual assertions she makes in each chapter. Thus it is unfortunately extremely difficult to follow how her "research-based" arguments and conclusions are really linked to research. This is particularly vexing in her chapter which asserts monogamy is essential to human bonding, which is a controversial issue.Attachment Theory does not, of course, explain the whole mystery of love - as if anything really can. Readers who are looking for the "single silver bullet" to understanding their relationships and resolving relationship differences will be disappointed, although Johnson's work goes a long way toward this understanding. A convergence of contemporary theories on relationship goes further to this end. For example Harville Hendrix's work on Imago theory (based on Jung's Imago theory) is still essential to understanding how opposites attract (but you have to sort of subtract some of the rigid psychosexual developmental theory of Freud that Hendrix's work also hinges upon). Also, the work by John and Julie Gottman on what is needed to "Build a relationship house" is extremely helpful for couples who often lack a sense of basic direction and basic relationship skills - but of course the Gottmans' work is really a collection of useful observations rather than a cohesive theory about relationship and bonding. Sue John's work, and John Bowlby's work before her, prove a clear theoretical foundation for understanding relationships. You might think Sue Johnson's writings on attachment theory as providing the FOUNDATION upon which the work of Hendricks and the Gottman's can stand. Without the foundational understanding of attachment theory provided by Johnson the edifices built by Hendrix and the Gottmans can not stand firm.