Sue Johnson Quotes

“We are all vulnerable in love. We are more emotionally naked with those we love and sometimes, inevitably, we hurt each other with careless words or actions.”

“Healthy dependence is the essence of romantic love.”

“To achieve a lasting loving bond, we have to be able to tune in to our deepest needs and longings and translate them into clear signals that help our lovers respond to us. We have to be able to accept love and to reciprocate.”

“When you have a safe connection in your relationship, you can pass the quality on, not just to your kid but to your kid’s future partners. (...) When we love our partner well, we offer a blueprint for a loving relationship to our children and their partners.”

“I am encouraging you to be courageous, look hard, and identify your usual response. It’s the one that pops out before you have taken a breath. This is the response that can trap you in a vicious cycle of disconnection with the person you love best.”

“The drama of love is all about this hunger for safe emotional connection, a survival imperative we experience from the cradle to the grave. Loving connection is the only safety nature ever offers us.”

“Most of the blaming (...) is a desperate attachment cry, a protest against disconnection. It can only be quieted by a lover moving emotionally close to hold and reassure. Nothing else will do.”

“Psychologists use words like codependent, symbiotic, or even fused to describe people who seem unable to be self-sufficient (...) with others. In contrast, Bowlby talked about ‘effective dependency’ and how being able, from ‘the cradle to the grave’, to turn to others for emotional support is a sign and a source of strength.”

“To shape love, we have to be open and responsive, emotionally as well as physically.”

“Our past history with loved ones shapes our present relationships. In moments of disconnection when we cannot safely engage with our lover, we naturally turn to the way of coping that we adopted as a child, the way of coping that allowed us to hold on to our parent, at least in some minimal way.”

“When marriage fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause. It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness. (...) The lack of emotional responsiveness rather than the level of conflict is the best predictor of how solid a marriage will be.”

“Conflict with and hostile criticism from loved ones increase our self-doubts and create a sense of helplessness, classic triggers for depression. We need validation from our loved ones. Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold!”

“The people we love are the hidden regulators of our bodily processes and our emotional lives. When love doesn’t work, we hurt.”

“Until we understand the core principles that organize love relationships, we cannot really understand love’s problems or offer couples enduring help. The demand-withdraw pattern is not just a bad habit, it reflects a deeper underlying reality: such couples are starving emotionally.”

“A major part of keeping love alive is recognizing moments of connection and holding them up where you both can see them (...). They remind us of how precious our relationship is and what close connection feels like. They remind us of the simple ways we can transform our partner’s world with the power of our caring.”

“Almost all of us have at least one additional exquisite sensitivity - a raw spot in our emotional skin - that is tender to touch, easily rubbed, and deeply painful. When this raw spot gets abraded, it can bleed all over our relationship. We lose our emotional balance.”

“Isolation and the potential loss of loving connection is coded by the human brain into a primal panic response.”

“New beginnings start with knowing how we create the trap that we are caught in, how we have deprived ourselves of the love we need. Strong bonds grow from resolving to halt the cycles of disconnection, the dances of distress.”

“Distressed partners may use different words but they are always asking the same basic questions, ‘Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Will you come when I need you, when I call?’ Love is the best survival mechanism there is, and to feel suddenly emotionally cut off from a partner, disconnected, is terrifying.”

“We have to reconnect, to speak our needs in a way that moves our partner to respond. This longing for emotional connection with those nearest to us is the emotional priority, overshadowing even the drive for food or sex.”

“Recognize and admit 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. Adult attachments may be more reciprocal and less centered on physical contact, but the nature of the emotional bond is the same.”

“Emotional connection is crucial to healing. In fact, trauma experts overwhelmingly agree that the best predictor of the impact of any trauma is not the severity of the event, but whether we can seek and take comfort from others.”

“As lovers, we poise together delicately on a tightrope. When the winds of doubt and fear begin blowing, if we panic and clutch at each other or abruptly turn away and head for cover, the rope sways more and more and our balance becomes even more precarious. To stay on the rope, we must shift with each other’s moves, respond to each other’s emotions. As we connect, we balance each other. We are in emotional equilibrium.”

“Caretaking and pragmatic support come naturally when we feel close and connected. ‘When you love, you wish to do things for,’ Ernest Hemingway wrote. ‘You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.’ We know from research that secure partners are more sensitive to each other’s needs for care.”

“When we feel generally secure, that is, we are comfortable with closeness and confident about depending on loved ones, we are better at seeking support - and better at giving it.”