Book
The Hold Me Tight Workbook (The Dr. Sue Johnson Collection)
A practical companion workbook that guides couples through seven Emotionally Focused Therapy conversations to recognize destructive patterns, uncover attachment fears, and build a secure, lasting emotional bond.
What it’s about
Based on Dr. Sue Johnson's million-copy bestseller Hold Me Tight and forty-plus years of relationship science, this workbook translates Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) into hands-on exercises, worksheets, and journal prompts that couples complete together. Rather than teaching couples to argue better or make grand gestures, it reframes love as an attachment bond—an innate, biological need for safe emotional connection—and shows partners how to identify their 'Demon Dialogues,' find their 'raw spots,' revisit rocky moments, engage vulnerably, forgive injuries, deepen sexual intimacy, and keep love alive. Through seven structured conversations, couples learn to recognize the fear-driven demand-withdraw dance that traps them, reach for one another with accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement, and create a resilient, secure attachment that buffers them against life's stresses.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A partner in a committed relationship who longs for a secure, deep, and lasting emotional connection with their significant other.
- The problem
- Recurring arguments, distance, and disconnection that trap the couple in negative cycles. Feeling lonely, unsafe, unseen, afraid of rejection or abandonment, and frustrated that love no longer makes sense.
- The plan
- Learn the language of attachment and identify your primal panic response (demand or withdraw).
- Recognize your Demon Dialogues—the negative cycles that trap you.
- Find your raw spots and the softer feelings beneath surface reactions.
- Revisit rocky moments to de-escalate conflict and create safety.
- Engage in the Hold Me Tight conversation to share fears and needs.
- The payoff
- A secure, deep, present, and lasting bond that buffers you against life's stresses. · The ability to recognize and stop negative cycles and reach for one another with compassion. · Renewed trust, satisfying intimacy, and a shared story of falling in love again and again.
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