Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

Sue Johnson (1947-2024) was a British psychologist and author whose professional career took place mainly in Canada. She is best known for developing emotionally focused therapy (EFT), a therapeutic approach that emphasizes the need for secure emotional attachment as the basis of healthy bonds between couples. This theory draws from earlier work by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, whose attachment theory argues that infants and young children need strong emotional bonds with their caregivers in order to thrive.

Johnson’s work challenged prevailing views that tended to pathologize emotional dependency in relationships. In contrast to such views, she argued that couples must be able to depend on one another for emotional support and that this “secure base” of support was a fundamental building block of healthy communities. She wrote numerous books on EFT for both professional and general audiences, and she founded the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, an organization dedicated to sharing best practices for clinicians applying EFT to couples’ therapy.

John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is widely regarded as the founder of attachment theory. His mid-20th-century research fundamentally shifted the field of psychology by demonstrating that human beings have a biological need to form close emotional bonds with caregivers.