BY SUE JOHNSON

Books on relationships - hold me tight

What You’ll Learn: How to not make your relationship problems worse; when to shut the fuck up and listen to your partner; how to not be such a selfish asshole? Maybe? (OK, maybe not.)

Why It’s Good: Sue Johnson is the originator of Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) which has apparently won the Olympic gold medal for the “therapeutic method that unfucks the most relationships” event. Out of all of the forms of couples therapy and marriage counseling, EFT apparently has the highest hit rate of them all.

So what was Sue Johnson’s big breakthrough? It’s one of those things that sounds so obvious in hindsight, yet it somehow eluded psychologists for, oh, like 100 years.

Johnson realized that romantic relationships were largely driven by unconscious emotions and desires (sidenote: duh). The arguments and memories and identities–i.e., what most people focus on–in each person were therefore secondary to the underlying emotional pain. Johnson then had the brilliant idea of saying screw all that other stuff, if these are emotional problems, let’s try to find emotional solutions, and voila! People stopped hating each other as much.

Hold Me Tight is a great run through of a) the emotional patterns that emerge when we’re hurt and experiencing relationship problems, and b) the conversations we can have to help heal those patterns. It’s an easy read. And also wildly popular. It’s my go-to recommendation for any relationship that is on the ropes.

What Kind of Break Up It Will Prevent: The kind where you talk shit about your ex for the next six years because you have tons of emotional baggage you never unloaded.