The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy

How would you define a bid for attention? Why is making and positively responding to bids for attention an integral part of successful relationships?

How do the Gottmans navigate the boundary between being a married couple and being relationship scientists in their book? To what extent do their home and work lives overlap?

Analyze the Gottmans’ unapologetically scientific approach to love. What are the virtues and limitations of a data-focused study of human relationships?

Why is the unit of a day so fundamental to the Gottmans’ love prescription? How do they show that changing daily habits can save distressed relationships?

Research how couples therapy is typically practiced and contrast the Gottmans’ use of the Love Lab. What kind of setting does the Love Lab provide? How do its appearance and practice facilitate their research?

What do the Gottmans mean by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and why did they draw from Biblical lore to describe these qualities? Why are these personified bad habits so destructive to relationships and how can we guard against them?

The Gottmans proudly work with couples from all demographics. With close reference to the text, to what extent do you think their principles in The Love Prescription apply equally to people from different ethnicities, ages, economic backgrounds, and sexualities?

Some of the conclusions from the Gottmans’ research are counterintuitive. With close reference to the text, explore which of their discoveries might be the most surprising in the context of other popular therapists’ views. Why might this approach to boosting a couple’s bond be unexpected given the conditioning of society at large?