John Gottman

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John Gottman, Ph.D. is known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis through direct observations. The lessons learned from this work represent a partial basis for the relationship counseling movement which is based on specific training and education of behaviors which will improve relationship functioning and the avoidance of those behaviors, shown by Gottman and researchers, to deteriorate human relationships.

Dr. Gottman claims to have developed a method that predicts with 87% percent accuracy which newlywed couples will remain married and which will divorce four to six years later. It is also 81% percent accurate in predicting which marriages will survive after seven to nine years. Dr. Gottman's prediction method is described in the book Blink and the television series The Human Face. Dr. Gottman's method relies on Paul Ekman's method of analyzing human emotion and microexpressions.

Dr. Gottman became a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. Many of his books have been widely sold in the popular press. Typical of his work is The Relationship Cure and The Marriage Clinic.