Couples Therapy

This article is part of a three-part series on Shame and Contempt In Part 1, we looked at contempt — how it functions as a shame defense, converting “I am inadequate” into “you are the problem.” But contempt has a subtler sibling that does the same job with less noise: defensiveness. Gottman’s research describes defensiveness as self-protection dressed up as innocence — the righteous counter-attack, the excuse, the “it’s not my fault” reflex. It sends […]