The Love Lab Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Love Lab - Essay Example What it takes to sustain a relationship: Gottman Dr. Gottman has suggested several things in the video. First of all, he has advised to get rid of ‘The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse’, insisting that couples tend to create misunderstanding as well as bitterness among themselves by criticizing each other’s actions or thought. Also, sarcasm, cynicism, offending gestures, mockery, indirect insult and other negative behaviors tear two people apart. Stonewalling and defensiveness also prevents spouses from discussing problems with each other. Therefore, according to Dr. Gottman, it is absolutely essential that whenever any occasion of dispute takes place, at least one partner must try to ‘settle’ down or ‘divert’ the topic (Gehart 337). To settle disputes in marriages, Dr. Gottman advised the couples for ‘couple therapy’ and weekend workshops. He also held the view that to sustain a marriage a couple must take certain initiatives lik e building ‘love- maps’ and must share fondness and good memories. Some admiration needs to be present among partners. Above all, they must concentrate on their marriage and hold a positive attitude. This would help in creation of a shared meaning and help the partners to achieve their ambitions and aspirations. Views about the video ‘The Love Lab’ The viewers could understand every details of therapy, or love- procedure of Dr. Gottman. With no extra efforts put on special effects, the video seems to capture a single day of ‘The Love Lab’, more precisely the couple of hours required for diagnosing a couple. At the beginning of the video which is less than five minutes in length, one finds an apparently- happy couple entering the love lab. All the characters who appear in the video look very convincing and rea - including Dr, Gottman himself, his assistants, and ‘happy and not-so- happy’ couples who walk to the ‘The Love Labâ €™ (The Love Lab). Though the video lacks fineness of quality and precision, but nowhere does it fails achieve its objective. One could not trace any sign of extravagance or grandeur on the backgrounds. Rather sometimes it gives the impression of a well-lit moderate apartment. The female- voice protagonist never comes in the front, but provides description and analysis of single action and shift of focus in the video- staring from the type and subject matter of questions that are asked, oral history interview, symptoms of a strongly- connected couple, etc. Soon after this, the video monitors the backstage of the research lab, where highly- trained observers analyze reactions of couple using a special type of coding system. The video shows the whole procedure step by step. Later on the video captures the activities of the couples and research technicians during ‘conflict discussion’. A glance of computers with special type of coding system and other the equipments im plies that Dr. Gottman’s ideologies are based on scientific grounds. The female- voice protagonist simultaneously describes the aspects or parameters of analysis- blood velocity, flooding, fidgeting, sweating palms, heat beats, facial expressions, body movements, and topics of disagreement like disagreement about finances, or maintenance of kids, how they met, warm affectionate memories, etc. Video tapes are used to record minute facial expressions which are later on analyzed using specific codes. At the end of therapy, these tapes are preserved for