Many people come into my office believing that defensiveness (one of the Gottman’s dreaded 4 horsemen) is a personal failing; however you may be relieved to learn that defensiveness is actually an evolutionary holdover rather than a character flaw. Historically, criticism signaled an enemy, so building defenses – sometimes even attacking them before they attacked you – was functional for survival; however, that defensiveness is dysfunctional for love.
Whereas the Gottmans believe that contempt is the most lethal of the 4 horsemen, relationship expert Dr. Warren Farrell believes that defensiveness is the single biggest barrier to a happy relationship. In his book “Role Mate to Soul Mate,” Dr. Farrell posits that couples who want lasting intimacy must consciously override this biological defensiveness since willpower alone rarely calms a nervous system that has already been piqued. What Farrell offers to make partners feel safe is six mindsets designed to interrupt the defensive reflex before it hijacks a conversation.
Here are Farrell’s Six Mindsets of Receptivity:
- Die for Partner: before listening, ask yourself whether you would risk your life for this person; if the answer is yes, hearing their complaint costs you comparatively little.
- The Love Guarantee: treat listening as an investment rather than a sacrifice and know that the safety you offer your partner’s feelings tends to come back to you as love.
- Cinematic Immersion: stay immersed in your partner’s story the way you would stay immersed in a film, without arguing with the plot or defending yourself against it.
- Attach/Detach: notice the instant a rebuttal starts forming, detach from it, and reattach to what your partner is actually saying, using a pause word like “Hold” if needed.
- Stream: imagine any anger or distortion in your partner’s words as “pollution” passing through a stream and use your own calm attention to filter out the pollution.
- Eye Contact: offer supportive eye contact only once you can genuinely receive what’s coming, since eye contact offered too early can invite vulnerability before you’re ready to meet it without defensiveness.
What I like about the six mindsets is that they don’t ask anyone to pointlessly try harder to stay calm. Instead, the mindsets target specific points in the defensive sequence: Die for Partner and the Love Guarantee lower the stakes before the conversation starts, Attach/Detach and Stream give a listener something concrete to do the moment they feel themselves shift from receiving to defending, Cinematic Immersion focuses on distilling the raw plot/information, and Eye Contact comes last since offered too early it can be unsettling.
I worked with a husband who didn’t understand why every attempt by his wife to raise a concern resulted in a shouting match. Like most of us, he genuinely believed he was a good listener, right up until the point that a criticism registered in his subconscious as a verbal dagger at which point something more primordial than his good intentions took over. I introduced Farrell’s “Cinematic Immersion” technique and asked the husband to picture his wife’s “observation” (complaint) the way he would watch a film in a movie theater – staying immersed in the plot rather than treating every line like Freddy Kruger is hiding in a closet behind him. What he had been reacting to was not the plot; it was his own emotional charge from some subconscious triggering that something his wife said or did – her tone, her sigh, her furrowed brow, the exasperated pause before she spoke, her folded arms, an eye roll… Once he learned to separate the charge from the plot, he found he could watch the story unfold without needing to defend himself against it in real time.
In session I now walk nearly every couple through Farrell’s Six Mindsets, which gives their nervous systems somewhere to put their outdated alarms so that the information underneath has a chance to land. If it’s left unaddressed and festers into a pattern, defensiveness doesn’t just derail just one conversation; it teaches both partners that it’s not safe to be honest. Couples should rehearse the mindsets in order to discover something that they may forget: that their partner IS a member of their tribe and that they are safe with them. And it’s in everyone’s best interest within the tribe to be vulnerable with each other – because it builds trust and reinforces secure attachment. The less defensive they are, the more capable they are to receiving information. Suggestions stop sounding like accusations, feedback stops sounding like failure, and criticism becomes what it was always meant to be: one person trying to help improve the relationship.