Dr. Sue Johnson - The Science of Love and Emotional Connection

Join us for an inspiring conversation as Robin sits down with the renowned clinical psychologist, Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder and leading authority on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Dr. Sue's work has touched countless lives, helping individuals, couples, and families improve their relationships by understanding and working with their emotions.

In this episode, we explore the profound impact of EFT and how it offers a scientific perspective on love. Dr. Sue and her team have trained therapists worldwide, empowering couples to transform their relationships.

Discover the secrets to open your heart, embrace vulnerability, and nurture meaningful connections in both your personal life and your relationships.

We want to hear from you! Send us your anonymous questions for the Podcast as well as our weekly IG Live Ask The Experts Q&A. https://realloveready.com/submitaquestion

Learn more with Dr. Sue

Newsletter: Emotional Health - Subscribe here: https://drsuejohnson.com/
https://iceeft.com/

FOLLOW DR. SUE AT: INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | YOUTUBE

FOLLOW RLR: INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

Watch the podcast on YouTube: youtube.com/realloveready

Credits: the Let’s Talk Love Podcast is hosted by Robin Ducharme, recorded and edited by Maia Anstey, and transcribed by Otter.ai.

Transcript

Robin Ducharme | Today I had the utmost joy and honor of speaking with Dr. Sue Johnson. Dr. Sue is the founder and leading authority on Emotionally Focused Therapy EFT a type of therapy that helps individuals, couples and families improve their relationships by understanding and managing their emotions. She has written dozens of books on the topic, including the best seller Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations For a Lifetime of Love. Dr. Sue is a true pioneer in the field of psychology. She and her team have trained therapists around the world in EFT and have been instrumental in helping couples change their relationships. EFT offers a clear scientific view of love. Dr. Sue teaches us that romantic love is all about attachment and emotional bonding. It is all about our wired in need to have someone to depend on, a loved one who can offer reliable emotional connection and comfort. I hope our conversation helps you open your heart. Be more vulnerable in your own life and in your relationships. Enjoy.
Welcome to Let's Talk Love the podcast that brings you real talk fresh ideas and expert insights every week. Our guests are the most trusted voices in love and relationships. And they're here for you with tools, information and friendly advice to help you expand the ways you love, relate and communicate. We tackle the big questions not shying away from the complex, the messy, the awkward and the joyful parts of relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme. Now, Let's Talk Love.
Hello, everyone and welcome to this very special episode of Let's Talk Love. I am so honored and full of joy to welcome our guest today. Dr. Sue Johnson. Dr. Sue, thank you for joining us.
Dr. Sue Johnson | I think that's me. I think I'm Dr. Sue Yes. Okay. That's what people seem to call me anyway. Yes.
Robin Ducharme | Are you okay with that?
Dr. Sue Johnson | Absolutely. Of course, I don't care what you call me.
Robin | Well, I am just so honored. I feel like a giddy little school girl, introducing you and being able to speak with you for the next the next hour about the tremendous work that you have been doing on this planet, I know that you have transformed the lives of so many couples, individuals, and helped to make relationships better. And that is, you know, we are so aligned in this Sue. That's my mission, with this with the company Real Love Ready is to help people learn how to be in relationship better. And that's what you that's what you do the bet that's what you do. So it's just such a beautiful synchronicity that we're here together today.
Dr. Sue | I'm happy to be here.
Robin | So I'm holding up your book, which I know most of our listeners have read. And if you haven't read Hold Me Tight. This is a book that we all must read. It's like a It's one of those that everybody has to have in their library for relationship skills, and tools. And this isn't just about skills and tools. That's the thing Sue, when I read your book, and it's taken me this long to read it, can you believe it? But I've because I've been hearing about you for so long, and now I finally dove into it. And I've been diving into your work. And it's made a huge impact in my own life and my own relationships. So it's very exciting.
Dr. Sue | Good, well. It's amazing to me that it's been so successful. And it's very rewarding. Because, you know, I just my whole childhood, my whole culture. I mean, I wouldn't have said that, to say this to you as a child. But it was about relationships. It was an English working class, pub. And it was really a huge community. And it was a community, I as a child, I watched, you everyone else was sort of watching nice little things for kids on TV. Well, I wasn't I was standing behind the bar, cleaning glasses watching adults fight and and, and flirt and weep, and, and it was the drama of relationships was always so obvious and so real for me and what was obvious in that place where there was quite a lot of pain and quite a lot of deprivation and quite a lot of PTSD. Because it wasn't that long after the after the war was that people came together. Everyone longed for belonging. Everyone needed to belong. And it was so interesting because it was such a contrast then when I went to graduate school, and I've read all these books about it oh, well, you know, intelligent adult people are separate individuated self sufficient. I just remember sitting in all these lectures thinking, no they're not. That's nonsense. I don't know. I don't think so. So you know, the academic reality and the reality that was out there then didn't fit for me at all. So I was always kind of caught. But and then attachment science came out. And if people don't know about attachment science, hey, guys, love isn't a mystery anymore. There's a science, we know it. We know what it's for. We know how to make it. We know what goes wrong. We know why it matters. Hey, guys, there's a science of romantic love and attachment. And it's got 1000s of studies in it, and people don't know about it.
Robin | No, that's right Sue but I also wanted to, you know, this is this was my, you know, as Oprah would say, my aha moment when I was studying your work and really started to integrate it into my own life, is that every week I interview a relationship expert on on our podcast, and this is what we do, right? We're trying to learn so that we can integrate and, and change our own relationships. But one thing I want to say is that the attachment theory, and the attachment knew, like all the stuff that's in social media, and amongst a lot of the work that the books that I'm reading is not a true picture of what attachment theory, how we apply it now. And that's what you're teaching. That's what you've been teaching for decades. Yeah, isn't it, we've got it all wrong. This isn't just about understanding your own attachment. Let's say I'm an anxious attached person, because of my childhood, okay, I think I'm on that path. I think I understand that. But it's about understanding that and, and really bringing that into your adult relationships. And there's nothing wrong, there's nothing I need to heal, like I need. I'm on a journey of healing, we all are. But the way that you are teaching this, and that's what your all your work is, is like, this is me, I'm human being and the way I was raised and bringing that into adult attachment. It's important for us to stay attached as adults.
Dr. Sue | Oh, yes. And the, you know, the research is, well, it's, it's, you know, people talk about attachment theory. It's not attachment theory. So attachment science, the research is totally clear. Our way our social bonding, human beings, children are vulnerable for much longer and more profoundly than almost any other species. As a little child, your nervous system knows that if it cries, and no one comes, it dies.
Robin | Right.
Dr. Sue | Your nervous system knows that it needs a response from another human being. And what John Bowlby basically said is, and of course, nobody's forgiven him for this, in some places, he said, Freud was wrong, that sex and aggression are not the most powerful motivations in human beings. What is the most powerful is the need to connect with another human being, and look into that human beings face and have them call and response. You call and they respond, they respond to you, because they see you. They value you. Right? You matter to them. And we are hungry for this, and our society. I was watching a debate yesterday, which was all about, you know, women and the sexual revolution, all this and somebody said, well, if we're also free, how come we're also miserable, you know, the data says that women in particular are more depressed and lonely than they've ever been. Right. And this is an I think out there. There's this huge hunger, to like, understand how to create these love relationships, and it's our most basic need. It's our most basic survival strategy, our survival strategy as human beings, when we are vulnerable, or overwhelmed or lose our balance is to call to call for another and, we all need at least one person to come. And the research says, if we have that knowledge, if we have that in our nervous system, and if we have that in our relationships, we are 1000 times more resilient, you can be more autonomous, we can explore, we can deal with our emotions. I mean, it goes on and on and on, you know. Like it's just on it's an it's fascinating because, in some ways we're starting to understand you know, I'm very proud of the fact that Hold Me Tight as a book is now used by the US military, the Canadian military, you know years ago. You know, the Canadian military would have just laughed themselves to death at me giving them a lecture. Well, last time I gave a lecture, they didn't laugh. Okay, so I'm very proud of the fact that we have programs based on Hold Me Tight, like the online hold me tight program, you know, holdmetightonline.com that people can do themselves. And even big organizations like the huge heart hospital, in my capital city in Canada. They actually came to us and said, you know, cardiologists don't come to psychologists basically and say, help, they just don't okay. But they did. They came to us and they said, listen, we're looking at our patients who aren't doing well, the ones that don't take their meds, the ones that don't turn up for the appointments, the ones that don't go to the gym, the ones that have another heart attack. And what we notice is they've all got distressed relationships. And when you help, as I said absolutly.
Robin | They have broken hearts, in a way. Yes, because emotionally, your heart is. So you're so attached, like, we are whole beings, right. If your not in healthy relationships, your heart is not going to be healthy.
Dr. Sue | That's right. And the fascinating thing was, one of the cardiologist said, people don't want that your people won't pick won't do it, you know, and so we ran the program, okay. It's called Healing Hearts Together. We've got and we finally ended up getting a huge grant to continue the research. But we ran the program, and we put it up in the halls, and it was full in an hour.
Robin | Wow.
Dr. Sue | And so this is people's hunger. We know. We need others we know. We don't just need others to be familiar with. That's not intimacy familiarity. People confuse these days people are going onto about, well, familiarity wrecks erotic eroticism. Yeah, dead ordinary familiarity does wreak eroticism. But guess what? An alive emotional bond. There is nothing more erotic than a body that's also emotionally engaged with another person playing and doing erotic play. All the research says that people who have the best sex most often and like it the best, find it the most thrilling, are people in long term happy love relationships.
Robin | Those that can be completely raw and vulnerable, that know each other that have that deep trust and that deep emotional bond will have the most intimacy and the best sex.
Dr. Sue | Yeah, because if I'm safe with you.
Robin | Yeah.
Dr. Sue | And I feel connected with you. And our signals are synchronized. And we can dance together in a beautiful way. Hey, I can communicate my sexual needs. I can relax, we can play together we can explore. I mean, good sex is erotic play. Hey, but we've done some really weird things with love. Oh, my God. You know, this all started with me. Years ago, I was an Argentinian tango fanatic. And I was very bad at it. Okay, let's, let's get this clear. I'm not tall and elegant. And you know, I'm not okay. I don't suit tango. I'm small. And you know, that I used to go to my tango lesson. And I used to walk through the main bookstore in my hometown. And I used to mutter to myself you see. Look at those books. Look at those. Look at that relationship section. It's all rubbish. It's all rubbish. It's telling people rubbish. And so then one day, I walked through, and I thought, hey, Johnson. Well, if it's all rubbish, then why the hell don't you write what you've been doing for the last 20 years, which is changing the field of couple therapy, showing people reliably, and we can show you in research, our results, and we know we get results and we know they last. I think we're the only couples therapy that can really show you that.
Robin | I mean, your therapy, your therapy service called Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Dr. Sue | Yes.
Robin | So can you please tell us what what that means? Because this you are absolutely a pioneer in in actually helping people understand that our attachment our emotional bonding is the most important and and translate and moving our attachment from childhood into adulthood and making us understand how important that is?
Dr. Sue | Yes. So from our point of view, emotion is the music of the dance of connection between people. You can exchange all kinds of information. You look at how people really dance together in terms of connection, disconnection, it's the emotion, it's the emotion that organizes your inner world. It's tells you what you need, tells you to turn towards this person or a way to be careful or to be relaxed. It's your emotion that organizes. And it's your emotional cues, that are the music that you send to this other person that then invites them into a particular kind of dance as safe dance of connection, and sharing, or not a dance of defensiveness, fear, vigilance, you know. So, I was very clear. You know, I went to graduate school, and everyone was saying, I'll just ignore emotion, you know, what matters is cognition, and behavior. And I used to sit, I was the bad tempered little student in the back of the room. And the professor would say things like, an all everybody agrees with me don't then I'd say, no, no, no, I don't really no. And I think people found me amazingly irritating. But but I didn't. And I'd say, no, if you're going to change relationships, and if you're going to change people, if you can get people to look at their pain, and going to new places, you have to go to the emotional level, you have to make them feel safe. So you know, this was all very interesting. But of course, then I went to work, I'd worked with groups, I've worked with violent men, I'd worked with individuals, families, adolescents. And then I went to work with couples. And I had all this in my head. But bottom line is, I have no idea how to actually translate that into helping people. And I would sit with these couples at the beginning and think, What is this? You know what the hell's going on here? They're just demolishing each other all the time. It's like, so I went to all the books, none of them helped me. And thank God, I started taping all my sessions. And I started watching them like a crazy person. Like, I'd watched them 20 times. And I started to get it. I started to get that, yes, these people were fighting about connection and disconnection. They weren't really fighting about who was going to do the washing up.
Robin | They weren't fighting about money. They're not fighting about.
Dr. Sue | No. Do I matter to you? Right? Can you see me? Will you come if I call?
Robin | Right. Are you there for me?
Dr. Sue | Yeah. Are you there for me? So we call it ARE, accessible, responsive and engaged, which the research says is what creates a secure bond, whether it's between a mother and a child or whoever, right? Are you there for me? But of course, they don't know how to ask it in those terms.
So they're upset. And somebody in our society, somebody's usually blaming. Yeah, maybe the woman not always. And it comes out as a criticism and a blame. Like, you never talked to me. Why don't you ever talk to me? You talk to your male friends, we don't talk to me. So listen to her. It's, it's telling him that he's a disappointment. And unfortunately, he doesn't see the need and the desperation underneath. But we did. I did. And he doesn't see the, the human vulnerability underneath. He just hears that she's angry with him. And he's criticized.
Robin | Yes, he's so he's taking that personally. And he's right away feeling the blame and the shame. So Sue what are you hearing underneath that?
Dr. Sue | I'm hearing. Do you see me? Do you see me? Do you? Do I matter to you? Do you do what do you need me? Am I important to you? Can you see me? Will you be there for me? You know, will you respond to me emotionally? And of course, the answer she gets is no. Right? And it's kind of a blame withdraw thing. And what he does is either stay intellectual and give reasons which doesn't work. Because there's no emotional connection in it. Or he shuts down and shut, he shuts down and shuts her out. While when he shuts her out. He confirms all her worst fears. That indeed, he can shut her out. She doesn't he can shut her out anytime. You know. And then of course, she gets more frantic, and then she'll cry and he doesn't know what to do with it either. Because he doesn't understand it. So he, you know, he sort of moves away and, and the patterns here became so clear after a while. And it was so clear how these two people were, you know, he was feeling rejected, and told he was,what did, the big disappointment, I'm the big disappointment. And she's feeling like she doesn't matter if she's abandoned. And so many marriages end up stuck here. And they get stuck here for years. The point is, what we do in EFT is we go to the emotional level, we help people, befriend their emotions, understand their emotions make sense of them, we help people see what's happening in this dance. And we blame the dance.
Robin | Right? You blame the dance not the people dancing.
Dr. Sue | And all of us get stuck in dances. You know, there's nobody who doesn't my wonderful son for about three years when he was about 16. Boy, did we ever get stuck. And I knew we were stuck. I could see it happening. We did anyway, you know, I would, I would say, I notice I'm trying to be positive. But listen to my voice. I notice that you aren't doing your assignments. I wonder what that's about? So he rolls his eyes at me, right? Um, that's it, I'm gone.
Robin | I'm feeling like you're being critical. You're being negative, right? I could just imagine where he's going with that.
Dr. Sue | It was bad.
Robin | So Sue, can you give me give me an example of how you would approach that differently? From the Emotionally Focused men? Like, how about this, how about this? Would you say something like, son? I am afraid I feel fear when I'm seeing this my perspective that you. What would you say? What would you say to actually get to the point of how you are emotionally feeling about the situation?
Dr. Sue | Well, what I tell you what did actually happen. I was in Starbucks on a Saturday morning, in my hometown, and people know me. And so this was particularly not a good idea. And my, my son, and I were standing in the queue. And I said, I tried to be reasonable, but my voice right. I said, I noticed that, you know, dadadada da, your marks and added on and he rolls his eyes. And I said something like, what are you doing rolling your eyes? You're rolling your eyes at me. Like, come on, Sue, you know, this is Saturday at Starbucks. Anyway, he says, Mum, you are being what is the word to used? I can't remember something like, oh, you are being impossible, or something. And I said, oh, impossible. Oh, impossible. Oh, so I lose it. And the end, he shuts me out and turns away. And the only way we stop. We all get stuck in these things. Because other people matter so much to us. And we have so many vulnerable emotions. The barista said, would you like cinnamon on top of that or not? And that changed everything. So my wonderful, we sat down and my wonderful son said bless his heart. Hey, Mom, that conversation didn't go too well did it? He stood back, which is what we do with couples and say, look at the dance you're caught in oh, dear. This dance is defeating you and leaving you both alone and hurting. So I said, literally, you were very wise in your comments. I said, you're right, Tim. I started at the wrong place. What I should have said is I'm getting really scared. I'm scared that I don't really know what's going on with you. I know that you're a very clever kid. And I know that you're just failing everything in school and you won't talk to me. And I feeling desperate and bit helpless and I don't know what to do. And he's and he said, ah, so this is new, right? He said, ah okay, Mom. I'm not failing everything. I've totally failed everything. I've completely missed the grade. I'm all my friends go to university. I'm not. You're right. I'm not talking to you. I'm I've messed everything up. So my house was six blocks away. By the time we had walked those six blocks, we were holding each other and we made a plan for how to help him go to the school down the road and redo his marks and we reconnected after I'd say at least two or three years of antagonistic you know, stuff. And that's what happens in couples too. It's so touching. doing EFT is moving because you show people this pattern and you say to a man, you know, how are you feeling right now? And he says, she thinks he's indifferent. Right? And with my help, he says, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do when she gets mad. She matters so much to me. I don't know what to do. So I freeze up. I'm overwhelmed. And I just avoid, I just avoid and, and you're right, it doesn't work. And I'm inside, I feel awful. I feel like I'm not who she wants.
Robin | Underneath it all you he's revealing, like just this raw emotion that and he wasn't he's not able to verbalize, but now he is.
Dr. Sue | He's not even able to label it before. And he, I say, and then of course, we create a new dance, where I say, can you tell her? Can you tell that I do shut down. I do shut you out. Because I'm overwhelmed and scared. And I don't know what to do. So he does, because I've created the safety. And it's fascinating. Me, sometimes people don't know what to do. They gotta go, no, no, no, no, this isn't the person I've been married to. And you have to help them. You have to help them orientate to it, you know, and, but lots of times, they just go. I didn't know that.
Robin | Right. So there's so many examples in this book, Sue that I, hundreds of examples, and you, you're sharing, there's so many times when these couples are in these demon dialogues that you call them in the book.
Dr. Sue | Yes.
Robin | Where the other person, the partner, it doesn't matter how many years they've been together. It's like, yeah, their partner shocked that they didn't, they didn't know that, right? They've been fighting in the same way as they've been. You call it the protest polka, where they're both in those protests. They're both going back and forth, withdrawal and wanting to gain connection, but it's not working for them. And then when it comes down to the raw emotion that they're sharing, like, it's actually quite common that one partner is I did not know the feeling that way. They're just so incredibly shocked.
Dr. Sue | Well, we as EFT therapists, we hear the basic emotions, the fears and the needs and the longings when we tune into those. And from our point of view, you know, I don't think I've ever seen a distressed relationship in a family, or in a couple where the basic question wasn't, are you there for me? Do you see me? Can I be safe with you? Are you there for me? And from my point of view, maybe it's changed? I hope so with our work. Most couples therapies didn't deal with that at all. They taught people skills, skills and grades. The trouble is, you can't use them when you lose your emotional balance. So you can't use them when you need them, okay, so they taught me,
Robin | Exactly
Dr. Sue | Right. So this is a different way of seeing and it's about accepting our needs as human beings, you need for other human beings to respond to you is wired into your nervous system is not optional. Okay, you can do weird things with it. You can wipe it out, you can get addicted. You can, you can decide it's dangerous. And some of us grew up in very traumatizing relationships. So it is dangerous. But the bottom line is you've got that basic need for responsiveness from other people. And it's our our basic survival guide. It's the way we've survived. I mean, look at us, we've got no claws. You know, we're sort of pathetic, really, in the animal world. I mean, you know, what, how do we get together? How did we survive? We got together. That's how we survived, we got together and we, we said, you know, hey, that's a big elephant. What do you think? Should we run away? And the and the other dude said, yeah, all right. Or, well, like, you know, what should we do if he comes after us, and you're to get if you're, if people have this connection, it changes everything. But what we also did, which I think is crucial in our research, and by the way, when I say research, we've got 30 years of peer reviewed, excellent research on all kinds of things. You can go to our ISEF site, and look at all the research. We study everything. Okay? That's what we do. We're, we're research clinicians. We teach all over the world in 40 countries. And you know, we research everything, but what I think I'm most proud of is if you're going to change people in their relationships, and the way they put their emotions together, their relationships with themselves and with others, you have to know where you're going. And you have to have a real image of what change looks like. You is not just sharing insights. That's a waste of time. People love insights and then they forget them two days later. So we watched people change. And we did all these studies, we know how to, we not only know how to help you step out of negative patterns that leave you both alone or rejected or abandoned, we know the Hold Me Tight conversation, you have to have to create a secure bond. And it doesn't just help you have a better relationship. We are resources, it literally helps you create a more secure bond, which is what your nervous system is wired to seek in this life. And is what gives us resilience and strength, right allows us to deal with our vulnerability well, so we would
Robin | And it also, So and that translates I'm sorry to interrupt you Sue, but it that translates into your other relationships.
Dr. Sue | That's right.
Robin | Because you're using it like you're understanding it. I heard you in a different interview, talk about how, if somebody asked you the question, well, you know, because we have all these skills, right? The I statements, this is how you communicate this, right? But like you, you said you forget in the moment in the heat of the moment. But once you learn about getting down to the deepest, deepest emotions of yourself, and being able to recognize that in another person, it's like you don't forget, you don't forget the feeling. And it's like, it's it's integrated, right?
Dr. Sue | You don't forget, because your nervous system goes, oh, my God, this is what I've been longing for. This is what I need, oh, my God. When we do these Hold Me Tight conversations. We know how to set them up, we know how to take care of them. And you know, people struggle with them. Because for some people, it's really quite dangerous to let yourself need another person and to accept that. But, you know, when we create these conversations, like they're like emotion, I don't know what to call them. This, I'm still struggling. They're like, emotional epiphanies. They're like, you know, therapists talk about in order to really create change, you've got to have a corrective emotional experience. What the hell is that? You know, I don't know, if they're searching for it for years. I know what it is. It's this ability to tune into your vulnerability, especially with another human being, and to share to touch your fear, your vulnerability, your need, and to reach for the other human being in a way that helps them come towards you. Something says, you know, I do get angry with you. I do. I am outrageous. I do scream at you. I do I get so desperate. I'm, I'm desperate. I I just don't think I matter to you. And I can't bear it. And I just want you to and I say and what would, how could he help you? What do you need? I just want him to, I just want to know that, I matter to him. And that I'm, I'm his special one. And then she burst into tears and reaches across and says, you've always been my special one. We just got stuck in this dreadful thing.
Robin | Yes. But she needed to hear that. And he needed to say it. So Sue, can you can you lead us through, I know you have your very poignant questions that you ask your couples so that you can get into, like you say the whole b type conversations are where you are, you're changing behaviors, you're changing the whole dynamic of the relationship, so that you can create this this strong bond. So you're asking what are you asking your couples so that they can do that so that they can actually get to that place?
Dr. Sue | When they first come in, you know, you can get all these assessments, psychologists love assessments, you know, and you get all these questions. But what we do is EFT therapists is we walk straight into how you put your emotional and relational experience together. So we basically say, the couple says, we're unhappy and that we're in a divorce, and dadada and we fight about the chores and we fight about the kid. And I said, and then what I say is, like, tell me what that looks like? What's the last time you had a fight what it looked like? And of course, I set it up, so they do it in front of me. And I see the dance. And instead of going to the content like well, you know, let's make a deal that you can do the washing up, that's a waste of time, and I'll go into the emotions. This is very difficult for you and sometimes people have a hard time. People will own anger, right, but vulnerability. So she says, well, I'm just angry. But you know If you're an EFTer, the underneath anger is threat, vulnerability. And so you, you say and and you stay in the moment and you say, and what's it like for you right now? To hear him say, I guess I do run away. I do run away because I don't know what to do in the fight. What's that? Like for you to hear him say that right now? And she doesn't even know, right? She doesn't even ask. She says. I'm confusing, I say yes. So we walk into how people put their emotions together their dance together, and we look at it with them. And we see whether it leads them into connection or disconnection. You can do this with an adolescent and a parent. You can do it with,
Robin | Siblings, right?
Dr. Sue | Yeah, yeah, you can do it. With any relationship, right?
Robin | Yeah, but really what you what you so in the book, there are seven conversations that you that you lead people through.
Dr. Sue | When you look at the protests polka, and you say, where are you stuck? Let's look at that. Let's look at where you're stuck. What do you do? In the places where you can't meet each other? Let's look at those conversations. And then you go into, you know, what is the emotional music what's happening? You know, underneath this in your, in your softer feelings, in the feelings of, you know, fear and loneliness. Like, one of the big things that John Bowlby, the father of attachment said is, and it's so funny, because it's like, we're discovering this in our society now, all over again, he said, for human beings, for social bonding human beings. emotional isolation is iactragenic it's aversive, it's traumatizing in itself. We're not wired for it.
Robin | No, we're not emotional isolation is toxic. You say that. And, and that is, but that is an experience that a lot of couples face is emotional isolation. And how incredibly painful that is, you could live or you could be in a relationship with somebody and feel completely isolated. Right?
Dr. Sue | That's right. So some people say things like, it's easier to just live alone. And know that I'm alone, than to try and live with you, when I'm constantly trying to find you. I can't find you anywhere. And there is some truth to that. But I think what's important to realize is that, that aloneness is not just about dancing with another person, it's something we carry in ourselves. And I invite people to think about, if you've had, if you've had one or two really good attachments in your childhood, then your nervous system is wired, to basically trust other people and believe that other people will be there for you. And you have that as a resource your whole life. Okay. My main attachment was I think it was my father. There was an uneducated working class man. I don't know how he ever decided to treat his little stroppy working class daughter the way he did, but he, he treated me, he told me, you can do anything. You're you're special. I mean, why did he do that we were poor and working class. And that wasn't really the reality. But he found ways. So the issue is, he's still there. I have his voice. And I carry it with me. And the emotional lessons he taught me are still there. So this gives me the ability to risk and trust. And we work a lot in individual therapy with traumatized folks who have never had this trust, who have been desperately hurt by the people that they are depended on, and how awful that is, and how hard it is then, for them to reach and take the risk of actually connecting with another person and showing their vulnerability. But it's an it's an internal thing, your emotional isolation, you can live alone and have an internal world of safe loving others, or you can live alone and have a desert. When I went to the the military in Canada, one of the things I said is they said we don't want our soldiers to keep committing suicide. I said I'm sad. And they said, I said, but do you know that something like I'm not sure about the actual accuracy here. But do you know that 75% of our soldiers who actually commit suicide they do it in the two weeks after their partner has left them. There's a silence in the room. I said, and you guys don't help the partners understand. Our man goes off to war, he comes back, he's a different guy.
Robin | Yeah
Dr. Sue 
You, you don't help the partner with that you don't, you know, there's nothing, there's no support for that. So she's now with a stranger, or he's now with a stranger. And everything starts to go wrong. This person is triggered, they're angry, or they're numb, and nobody helps them. So what do you think is gonna happen? Relationships gonna fall apart. And then what do you think is gonna happen? I tell you, the soldiers gonna get worse. What I hopefully doesn't end up in suicide. And they listen to me, they actually listen to me. And you know, this is the power of relationships. But I think what's important is not just us knowing how to have good relationships, which my goodness in our chaotic world, dealing with all the uncertainty has become more important than ever. It's not just that it's about knowing who we are
Robin | Right
Dr. Sue | We are not these separate. Little automatons that can fill our life full of screens and tasks. And, you know, we are emotional, human beings, with fears and needs. And we are strongest together. That sounds like a cliche.
Robin | It is totally true. Yeah,
Dr. Sue | It's absolutely true.
Robin | We have to reprogram and we have to change our beliefs around this Sue because it's in our it's so ingrained in our culture now. And it has been for for a very long time, this idea about independence, and being strong and self reliant. And I love the example that you gave around, you know, looking in the mirror every morning, be like, you're awesome, you're strong. You're like, any us and you say, actually, what you need to be doing is looking somebody else in the eyes.
Dr. Sue | God, we're in love with invulnerability, live forever. Be powerful, be popular, for goodness sake, you know, internet, you know, be separate, be you make your own life. Where's the stuff about mattering to other people and being connected to other people, it gets lost, and it gets lost in the SEC story too. It gets lost, because we seem to have decided that familiarity, which is not secure attachment. It is not. It's kind of a dead one surface thing. You know that will wreck sexual eroticism. Probably it will. But we have researched that when all couples come in. Even if we don't talk about sex at all. They have better sex lives at the end. Of course they do.
Robin | Yes, of course they do. You know, and there's a whole section in the book, this is another like you said, Sue, we could do three or four episodes, talking about all of your work many, many more. But the you know, you do emphasize that what we just talked about, but also the importance of human touch. Yeah, and how, in a lot of couples, when they are in this, you know, place of prolonged distress, they're not touching anymore. They're not looking each other in the eyes, they're not having conversations, they're not physically touching, and how important human touch is. And we can understand that from a parenting point of view, we can understand how babies, they need to be. Children need to be touched in order to thrive, like that's a human need. And as adults, we need that just as much.
Dr. Sue | That's right. And, you know, we talked, I talk in the book about three different kinds of sex.
Robin | Yes
Dr. Sue | There's what I called sealed-off sex, which is, you know, hookups. Put your emotions away. Pretend that you're an automater, just seek an orgasm, get the best orgasm, you can, you know, and it's empty. And people still feel alone. And, you know, it's not satisfying. It's certainly not satisfying for women, but I don't think it's satisfying for men, and we call that sealed off sex. They're just going through the motions to get an org to get sensation. Right. And of course, porn has taken that and made it almost the norm. And then there's what we call solid sex. Which is not about sex. You know, it's about my client, Danny saying to his wife. You don't make you don't make love to me often. Why don't you make love to me often? If you love me, you make love to me three times a day. My best friend's wife makes love to him three times a day. His wife you can see her she she looks immediately exhausted, right and, and so and but listen to him. If you loved me, you would make love to me three times a day. So, so here's their cycle. She says, I don't want you going on about. We went away for the weekend. We've been married for 30 years. I love you. I don't want you going on about doing we make love on on Sunday morning, wasn't it good? And this is what Danny says. Yes. But will you make love to me tomorrow? So this isn't about orgasm. This is about Danny saying I'm scared to death. He says she's always she loved my best friend. I know she did. I'm small. She's so beautiful. In other words, you're
Robin | He's not feeling important to her. He's not deeply bonded and connected to her. So he's turning to sex. And he's thinking that sex is going to be
Dr. Sue | When do you feel important to your wife? When are you sure of her? When he's when they're actually making love and he's giving her an orgasm.
Robin | He's feeling connected.
Dr. Sue | That solid sex and she and he doesn't touch her. And she doesn't touch him because she's so fed up. She she shuts him out. She tries to respond to him or she shuts him out, you know. But that's solid sex. So he's not about orgasm. You he says to me, you know, I've got high testosterone, I thought yeah, well, man, you've got high insecure attachment. That's what you've got.
Robin | Wow, but really, that it's, it's true. Wow.
Dr. Sue | And then you get synchrony sex, which is when people can open up and be emotional, and physical, and connect with each other and trust and play. And that is beautiful, and turns people on, you know, I stood once in the Netherlands and watched for an hour. These two swans doing their mating ritual, oh, my God. It was so beautiful. And they did the same thing. They entwine their necks, and they put them their heads down on their backs. They looked at each other and they intwine their necks. And they this is like, you know, can I predict your response? will you respond to me? Your Are you there for me? And these two swans are bonding. And we're the same, this amazing bonding. You know, our bodies come close, we're naked. We bond we respond to each other just like we do with a middle child. This is magic. We don't need to. We don't need to have new stimulation a new porn a new games, to know that this is where it's at. Our nervous system goes, ahhhhhhhhhhh, I'm a bit biased here because I used to dance Argentine Tango, okay, 10 hours a week. And people think Argentine Tango is this sort of weird. Dancing with the Stars sexual thing. It's not at all. Argentine Tango is about tuning into another human being that you don't know you've maybe never met before. The music holds you and gives you a structure and sort of tells you how to move. But you stand in front of somebody and you breathe. And you pick up their breath. And then you start to move your weight. And you probably wouldn't even see it. If you're watching. You move your weight. And there's a certain point when you tune in your like, there. Okay, and then you move together to the music and it doesn't happen in every tango, of course. But it is bliss. People say on why do people close their eyes? Well, because you're more sensitive to the cues coming to the other person. So there's, she's got these pictures of me with my, I've got my eyes closed and I'm in bliss, you know, and it's it's bliss. Our nervous system goes Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. oh, holding this baby. Yeah, okay. It's three o'clock in the morning. Like God, I want to go to sleep. My god, he's thrown up on me again. My God. Why am I doing this? Oh, because I can feel him against my chest and he sighs and when he sighs my body responds and, and dancing with this person and looking into my husband's face and having him reach for me in a moment. When I know he's vulnerable. You're wired for this. This is this is your entitlement, your inheritance. And somehow in our society we have moved away into novelty. You know, novelty, what is new. You know, you need 80 you need 82 games to still get turned on. No, you don't, not if you're emotionally connected.
Robin | Right.
Dr. Sue |  It's love is fascinating. The point is, we've cracked the code, John Bowlby, attachment science cracked the code. And we've cracked it and very proud to say in terms of taking John Bobby's work and turning it into, okay, you know, what do you do here. And how do you show people where they're stuck. And how do you help them move out and share their deepest fears and vulnerabilities.
Robin | Yes, it's sharing your deepest fears and vulnerabilities. And, you know, in the book, you talk about, like going down the elevator, we need to go down a couple floors here. Where is that anger coming from? What is actually underneath that anger? What is underneath, you know, your protest what is underneath, because like, that's just surface stuff, we need to go deeper and connect on this heart level, which Sue, I just, I'd wanted to share a personal story just this week, because I've been in you know, I've been in a struggle with my former husband. And it's been it's been a lot of surface stuff, like serious stuff, but surface stuff. And after reading your book, and really diving into Hold Me Tight, I'm like, I need to have, like, Hold Me Tight conversation here and share my vulnerability of where I'm at. And it really like, I really, I know that things have shifted because of the conversation we had a few days ago. So this works. Of course, it works. But we just have to keep practicing it. Right. Yeah
Dr. Sue | And there's so much crazy misinformation out there. You know we associate freedom with what I would call sealed off sex and sealed off interactions. You know, freedom. No. Freedom is just a horse, you ride to somewhere, if you're riding it to isolation, guess what? It's not a good horse, like this nonsense, okay? It's just, no, you guys. There's so much misinformation and weird stuff out there. And so many people writing about relationships from their opinions. I mean, they're trying to help. But we I'm not talking about opinion here, I'm talking about what I know, I'm talking about over 30 research studies, I'm talking about the I can know how to change a couple in a particular way. And I can tell you that in three years time, like she is going to be less depressed, he's going to be less anxious, they're going to have a more secure bond, they're going to have better sex, and they're going to have a good relationship. I can tell you that with 85% accuracy, okay. This is not another marketing gimmick, or somebody's brilliant idea about what relationship, this is science, attachment science has 1000s of studies on it. It's about who we are as human beings, how we grow, how we get stuck, how much we need each other. How we can create resilience and strength. You know, it's, you know, the strong human being is the human being who knows their vulnerabilities, and their fears and needs, and can accept them.
Robin | Well, I want to say that, anyway, I just have loved our conversation, but everybody has to read your book, can you tell us about how people can follow your work and not just follow, we need to implement and learn andnjust bring Emotionally Focused Therapy into our lives and in our relationships. So tell us about that. Please Sue how people can continue with you.
Dr. Sue | Well, first of all, you can look in your community and see if people do EFT. And if they are you can look at the Hold Me Tight, there's maybe a group in your community. You can look at the online Hold Me Tight online program. There's all kinds of things out there. There's support for Hold Me Tight. And we actually have I think my wonderful folks in my institute now have a new newsletter called Emotional Health newsletter, that you can go into my website and find Dr.suejohnson.com. There's lots and lots of stuff on there. Lots of little clips and you know, lots of little, oh, and I'm, I'm blown away. I'm all over the you. There's, there's I mean, on YouTube. You can go there's all kinds of YouTubes and be talking about relationships. We trained therapists all over the world health professionals, so you can look in your community and see if there is Hold Me Tight resources.
Robin | Well we will make sure that we put all the websites on the show notes. And I want to thank you with my whole heart.
Dr. Sue | You’re most welcome, it was fun
Robin | With us today, I'm going to close with a blessing. And it's all this is all sentiments from you, Dr. Sue. So may we be reminded each and every day of the power of connection, the power of vulnerability and the power of love in our lives. May we turn towards one another by sharing our deepest feelings and emotions, we can forge a bridge of connection and closeness with others. And may we Hold each other Tight, and be held by them, remembering our greatest joy and fulfillment in life is through the relationships we have with each other. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Sue | Thank you, sweetie. It was really really fun. I enjoyed it. And thank you for that lovely, lovely thing you just said. That's lovely.
Robin | Please visit RealLoveReady.com To become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At RealLoveReadypodcast@gmail.com We read everything you send. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love Ready podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, stewards of the land on which we work in play, and encourage everyone listening to take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.